Fatty foods, such as chips, burgers and fried foods, are harder to digest and can cause stomach pain and heartburn. Cut back on greasy fried foods to ease your stomach's workload. Try to eat more lean meat and fish, drink skimmed or semi-skimmed milk, and grill rather than fry foods.
The foods with the longest time to digest are bacon, beef, lamb, whole milk hard cheese, and nuts. These foods take an average of about 4 hours for your body to digest. The digestion process still occurs even when asleep. Which means our digestive fluids and the acids in our stomach are active.
Some people with chronic stomach discomfort are more sensitive to certain foods like dairy, spicy foods, soda, fried foods or alcohol. These foods can relax the muscle that keeps food from traveling backward, increase stomach acid production or keep the stomach full for too long.
Your body can't fully digest foods high in fiber, a type of carbohydrate. While your body breaks down most carbohydrates into sugar molecules, it can't break down fiber. So it passes through your GI tract undigested.
Some slow digesting vegetables include peas, carrots, eggplant, cauliflower, broccoli, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, green beans, and red peppers. Grain choices to consider include oat bran, rolled oats, brown rice, and wheat tortillas.
4 Bananas are also a part of the BRAT diet, which stands for bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast, which are all easy to digest and can help you hold down food when your stomach is upset.
An anti-inflammatory diet, regular exercise, good quality sleep, and probiotics are all strategies to put in place before trying antimicrobials or antibiotics to get rid of bad bacteria.
Dairy products, nuts, eggs, peanut butter, soy, corn, wheat, and gluten are common food allergies that can cause symptoms such as stomach pain. A food elimination diet or an allergen-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibody test can be conducted to determine whether you are allergic to a particular food or substance.
Avocados: Though a rich source of dietary fiber, avocados should be avoided if you have an upset stomach. A part of the plant foods passes through your system without being digested. Fiber is beneficial for digestion because it aids the movement of waste and prevents constipation.
Yogurt. If you eat Greek or Icelandic yogurt, like Skyr, you're getting gut-friendly probiotics to help keep nausea and stomach problems at bay. Try a small helping of these yogurts before head out the door or when you feel nausea coming on.
Evidence suggests honey might help relieve gastrointestinal tract conditions such as diarrhea associated with gastroenteritis. Honey might also be effective as part of oral rehydration therapy.
Carbonated beverages are on the maybe list. If you have issues with bloating, skip the bubbles. But if your stomach is temporarily feeling upset, try club soda or ginger beer as a mixer with your distilled alcohol of choice.
Take care to avoid caffeinated sodas, since caffeine can make your upset stomach worse. The carbonation from sodas inflates the stomach while increasing its internal pressure.
The top 10 easy-to-digest foods include bananas, sweet potatoes, white rice, papaya, yoghurt, watermelon, kefir, chicken, kombucha, and eggs. In addition, probiotics (yoghurt, kefir, kombucha, tempeh) aid digestion and support gut health. Furthermore, one of the best foods for easy digestion is yoghurt.
Our digestive system moves food through our bodies through a series of muscle contractions. As we age, this process can slow down. When that happens, more water from the food is absorbed into the body, which can lead to constipation.