Make This Fall-Flavored Hemp Heart Porridge Recipe To Break Your Fast

A morning bowl of oatmeal is the perfect way to start a fall day, especially when it's flavored with flavors like apple and cinnamon—but the carbohydrate content of a bowl of oatmeal makes it a less than ideal option for breaking a fast. Not only that, but many prepacked oatmeals are loaded with sugar, another enemy of proper fast-breaking.

"Definitely avoid carb-loaded meals and sugary drinks as they will cause a blood sugar roller coaster," explains Amy Shah, M.D. "Additionally, having lots of sugar will make fasting for the next day even harder because your hunger hormones will be raised."

So what's a porridge lover to do? Cutting down on the sugar in your bowl is easy enough, but oats are a pretty essential part of porridge—or are they? This recipe, from The Intermittent Fasting Cookbook, swaps oats for a mixture of hemp hearts and flaxseed meal.

For Desiree Nielsen, R.D., her everyday meals always include hemp hearts, largely because they "will give you 10 grams of plant-based protein" in only 3 tablespoons. (For reference, this recipe calls for the equivalent of 8 tablespoons, or about 25 grams of protein).