Food blogger of the moment Ella Woodward, or Deliciously Ella as she is now better known, was diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) in 2012, and after spending months in and out of hospitals, and eventually leaving with medicine and steroids, the 23-year-old began to look to her diet for help. After a day of reading, she started a plant-based diet she personally devised for herself.Eighteen months later, and having followed the regime that saw her give up everything refined and processed, "meat, dairy, sugar, the lot", Ella now says she feels "phenomenal".
She has more energy, suffers less pain, and is fit, slim and toned – and she no longer takes medication.The former history of art student also has her own blog, Deliciouslyella.com, to which she adds three new recipes a week and which receives 150,000 hits a day, and she has just been snapped up to pen her own food column in The Telegraph.She tells the newspaper that her new diet has cured her so remarkably that doctors are now using her as a case study for others suffering from PoTS. "They said, 'We know it works, and now we just need to understand why.' And for me, that was huge. I remember calling my mum and crying."
She compares her plant-based diet to being vegan, naming the key difference between the two as the exclusivity that goes-hand-in-hand with veganism. "For me it's about natural food, eating a healthy diet, but also being as accessible as possible," she tells The Telegraph.
Ella, whose mother is Camilla Sainsbury of the supermarket family, clearly has the right approach. Her recipe app has had 70,000 downloads and her new cookbook called Deliciously Ella: Awesome Ingredients, Incredible Food That You and Your Body Will Love is already the talk of the cuisine world – and it hasn't been published yet.Ella's new kitchen tome sounds like quite the culinary adventure – recipes range from chocolate mousse made with avocado and sweet potato brownies to mushroom and chickpea stew and her favourite breakfast, hash browns with baked beans, avocado, garlicky spinach, brown rice toast served with dates and almond butter.