Yes, it's okay and often recommended to not eat solid foods for a few hours when you have food poisoning to let your stomach settle, focusing instead on small sips of clear liquids like water, broth, or sports drinks to prevent dehydration, then slowly reintroducing bland, low-fiber foods like bananas, rice, or toast as you start feeling better.
To "flush out" food poisoning, focus on staying hydrated with water and electrolyte drinks, resting, and gradually reintroducing bland foods like bananas, rice, and toast (BRAT diet) while avoiding dairy, caffeine, and spicy foods to let your gut heal, as there's no instant fix, and your body usually fights it off in a few days.
"Most people typically feel better and are back to their usual diet after about a week, but everyone is different," says Dr. Kalakota. Maybe you're ready for the BRAT diet by the end of the day but find that you need to avoid fatty, fried and spicy foods longer than a week.
If you think you have food poisoning:
In most cases, people with food poisoning get better on their own without medical treatment. You can treat food poisoning by replacing lost fluids and electrolytes to prevent dehydration. In some cases, over-the-counter medicines may help relieve your symptoms.
The 4 C's of preventing food poisoning are Clean, Separate, Cook, and Chill, fundamental food safety practices to stop germs from spreading and multiplying, ensuring food remains safe to eat by washing hands/surfaces, keeping raw foods apart, heating food to the right temperature, and refrigerating promptly.
Choose easy-to-digest foods
“Start with easy-to-digest and soft foods, like scrambled eggs, almond butter on a banana, or peanut butter toast,” says Stuart. Pairing protein-rich foods such as nut butters with bananas or toast can help balance blood sugar and keep you feeling full longer, Stuart explains.
The symptoms of foodborne illness — vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, sometimes a fever — can most often be managed at home. Unpleasant as it is, it's best to let the diarrhea run its course rather than use a medicine like Imodium, because diarrhea is the body's mechanism for ridding itself of the toxin.
If you think someone has food poisoning, advise them to lie down and rest. Encourage them to drink plenty of water to prevent dehydration.
The 20-minute rule for eating is a mindful eating strategy suggesting it takes your brain about 20 minutes to receive fullness signals from your stomach, so eating slowly, taking at least 20 minutes for a meal, and waiting 20 minutes before seconds helps prevent overeating by aligning consumption with satiety, reducing unnecessary calories, and improving digestion.
Symptoms of food poisoning include:
Research shows that following a restricted diet does not help treat diarrhea. Most experts do not recommend fasting or following a restricted diet when you have diarrhea.
Most people develop diarrhea, fever and stomach (abdominal) cramps within 8 to 72 hours after exposure. Most healthy people recover within a few days to a week without specific treatment. In some cases, diarrhea can cause severe dehydration and requires prompt medical attention.
Different treatments include:
Most mild cases of food poisoning are treated the same as stomach flu (gastroenteritis) and usually last less than a week. If you have diarrhea or vomiting, you may lose a lot of fluids (get dehydrated). The goal is to replace your lost fluids and ease your symptoms.
To stop diarrhea, focus on bland, binding foods from the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) plus probiotics (yogurt), lean proteins (baked chicken), starchy foods (potatoes, crackers), and liquids (broth), while avoiding dairy, fats, fiber, caffeine, and spicy items to help firm stools and restore electrolytes.
Bacteria like Staph and Bacillus cereus can make you sick quickly, within 1 to 7 hours. These bacteria produce fast-acting toxins in foods (such as meat or dairy for Staph, and starchy foods like rice for B. cereus).
Hygiene refers to behaviors that can improve cleanliness and lead to good health. A few examples of hygiene can include how you care for your body, how you care for your baby, or how you care for your home environment to stay fresh and clean.
For most adults, Dr. Gordon Spratt recommends showering just once a day at most. For elderly adults, she says one shower every 2 to 3 days is sufficient, since skin tends to be drier and frequent bathing can exacerbate it.
Stomach flu (viral gastroenteritis) and food poisoning are two different conditions with similar symptoms, making it difficult to know which one you may have.
Bile is a greenish-yellow type of special digestive liquid that causes your vomit to change colour when there is no presence of food in the stomach. Therefore, this causes your vomit to present as a green or yellow colour.
Symptoms of food poisoning
feeling sick or being sick. diarrhoea. tummy pain. a high temperature.