The best bland diet foods are easily digestible things that don't irritate the lining of the stomach. In most cases, this will be low-fiber carbohydrates, dairy products with less fat and soft foods that don't require much effort to digest. People on a bland diet are usually told to avoid most meats — especially those that are very fatty — and there normally is a recommendation to avoid anything that's overly acidic, such as citrus fruit or citrus juices. People also often stay away from soft drinks because they tend to be fairly acidic, and some people might avoid coffee because it can irritate the stomach.
The human body generally has an easier time digesting some things than it does others, and doctors consider this when recommending the best bland diet foods. For example, meat is a bit more difficult to digest than most other foods, and so is fat. Fiber is another example, and the body's inability to digest fiber is one of the main reasons that it is often recommended as a good diet food. When it comes to bland diet foods, however, things that are difficult to digest are usually not a good idea. For example, eating raw broccoli might be very healthy under normal circumstances, but it can also put an extra strain on a person's stomach that might make him or her feel sicker if he or she already has a stomach virus or an inflamed ulcer.
When people talk about carbohydrates without a lot of fiber, they usually are referring to things such as white bread and bananas. These foods are very easy for someone's stomach to handle. They normally digest quickly and basically require less stomach acid than most other foods to break down. For this reason, they don't tend to irritate person's stomach quite as much as many other food products will. Foods that are already broken down partially into a more liquid form, such as applesauce or baby food, usually are easier for a person to digest.
When it comes to drinks for people who need to eat bland diet foods, many will stay away from soft drinks because they can burn the stomach. This also is true of coffee. For these reasons, many people choose to drink tea instead, and often they will blend the tea much more blandly than usual to make it more like drinking water. Others choose to drink plain water.