Suhoor that keeps you full

White bread, sweet cereal, juice, jam, cookies. These leave your stomach fast. Two hours later there is nothing left to work with, and the day has barely started.

Three things slow that down.

Protein. Eggs, labneh, yogurt, beans, chicken, cheese.

Fat. Olive oil, tahini, avocado, nuts, the fat already on the meat.

Fiber. Oats, whole grains, fruit you eat with the skin, vegetables, lentils.

A suhoor with all three stays with you. One built on white bread and jam does not, however much of it you eat.

You cannot drink a liter at four in the morning and store it for the day. Spread it across the night instead, from iftar to suhoor, rather than forcing it down at the end.

Salt is what most people get wrong. A very salty suhoor makes you thirsty by noon, and thirst is harder than hunger. Pickles, processed meat, salty cheese, chips, instant soup. Cut them back at suhoor and keep them for iftar if you want them.

Fruit and vegetables with a lot of water in them help more than they look like they should. Cucumber, tomato, watermelon, orange.

Something with protein. Something with fat. Something slow. Water.

That is the whole rule, and it survives being applied to whatever is actually in your kitchen.

• Eggs, olive oil, whole wheat bread, tomato and cucumber
• Oats soaked overnight with milk or yogurt, dates, nuts
• Labneh with olive oil and za'atar, whole wheat bread, a piece of fruit
• Ful with olive oil and lemon, bread, tea

Labneh and yogurt are the default suhoor in a lot of homes, so leaving out dairy takes the easiest option off the table. These do the same job.

• Tahini instead of labneh. Fat and protein, and it spreads the same way.
• Avocado on bread with salt and lemon.
• Eggs, which people forget are not dairy.
• Soy milk for soaking oats. Worth knowing: soy has protein close to cow's milk, while almond and rice milk have very little. If you are swapping for protein, the one you choose matters.
• Beans and lentils. Ful, hummus, lentil soup.

Eggs carry a lot of that weight, so if they are out as well, which job the egg was doing decides the swap. And suhoor is the meal you control. At the iftar end it is the ghee in the rice and the sweets.

• Eggs, in any form
• Rice, including overnight rice pudding made with what you can drink
• Potato, roasted the night before
• Oats, if you tolerate them and buy ones labeled gluten free
• Beans, lentils, chickpeas
• Fruit, nuts, dates

Read the label on bread and cereal sold as healthy. Barley and malt turn up in both, and neither is obvious from the front of the package.

Not dairy, not gluten. Two eggs fried in olive oil, half an avocado, tomato, a handful of dates, water.

Made the night before. Oats soaked in soy milk with chia, dates and chopped nuts. Take it out of the fridge and eat it. This one matters more than it sounds, because the real reason people eat badly at suhoor is that it is four in the morning and nothing is ready.