Deliciously Ella shares recipes using the latest superfood date nectar (2024)

You've got to grips with cacao and are coming to terms with spirulina but now there's a new health food to add your kitchen cupboards.

Date nectar is this summer's latest addition to the superfood shopping list and is being hailed as a must-have by someone who should know, Ella Woodward.

The 23-year-old best-selling author - better known as Deliciously Ella - has clubbed together with BeLOVeD, to celebrate the benefits of date fruit.

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Ella, a lover of all things healthy, has created three exclusive recipes using theBeLOVeD date nectar, including a chia pudding and date bread.

The health-food advocate says that dates should be a staple in any health junkie's cupboard as she uses them in her cooking constantly.

She said: 'Dates are quite possibly my favourite ingredient, I love that they taste as sweet as candy but they're filled with so much goodness and they make me feel amazing, which is why I use date nectar in a lot of my cooking.'

Ella is right to plug the benefits of the fruit as dates are celebrated for their unique complex of minerals, fibres and phytochemicals and proven ability to help protect against cancer, heart attacks, strokes and liver damage.

Date nectar is made 100 per cent from dates the nectar has been expertly extracted to create naturally sweet date syrup that retains the benefits of the whole fruit and Ella says that it is a fuss free way of including the superfood in your cooking.

'BeLOVeD Date nectar is one of my favourite sweeteners as it has such an incredibly rich flavour that really adds depth to whatever I'm making, it's so much more exciting than lots of other sweeteners which only add sweetness but nothing else.

'It's great to bake with too as it's really sticky so it helps bind mixtures together.

'I use it on everything from porridge to smoothies, chia puddings, crumbles, muffins, cakes, icing and just about everything else. It makes each dish taste so good!'

And Ella should know, her advice on clean living has seen her develop an enormous fan base with her cookbook becoming the fastest-selling debut cookbook since records began on its release in February.

The book tells the tale of Ella,a self-confessed 'sugar monster', who was struck down with a rare illness that attacked her nervous system and left her bed-bound. She cured herself through healthy eating and wanted to share her story with others.

She embraced a fully vegan lifestyle and managed to beat her illness and launch her own successful business, which has lead to the release of her debut recipe book documenting her story and sharing her healthy living tips.

Ella, whois the eldest daughter of Camilla Sainsbury, the supermarket heiress, and Labour MP and former Cabinet minister Shaun Woodward, blames her former diet for a multitude of problems.

Her childhood was extraordinarily privileged but her diet, by her own account, was appalling and she blames it for her poor health.

In 2011 Ella was diagnosed with a relatively rare illness called Postural Tachycardia Syndrome, or POTS.

The syndrome effectively breaks down your autonomic nervous system: the system that controls everything that is meant to happen automatically in the body - so your heart beat, digestion, circulation and immune system.

Ella, who lives in London, was bed-ridden 95 per cent of the time and prescribed conventional medication and steroids for about six months but they didn’t make much difference so she decided to make a change herself.

'I began researching natural healing which is how I came to change my diet. Overnight I gave up refined sugar, gluten, dairy, anything processed or refined and meat,' she told the MailOnline in February.

'I noticed a difference after just a few weeks of eating well though and 18 months later I was able to come off all the medication - which I should have been on for life - and now feel absolutely amazing.'

Ella tracked her progress and shared all her favourite recipes via an online blog, Deliciously Ella.

She quickly saw her internet fame sky-rocket, garnering 17m blog hits, 250,000 Instagram followers and 420,000 YouTube viewers, who avidly follow her colourful 'food p*rn' snaps and enthusiastic attitude to clean living.

BeLOVeD Date Nectar will be able in ASDA from 30th May