The former queen of clean living that turned her back on the tag once it garnered negative press has turned her attention to producing ready-made food.
The latest release is frozen ready meals to serve one. However the portion sizes are tiny and resemble the sizes you find for toddler ready meals.
The new frozen meals by Deliciously Ella weigh just 275g, making them more suitable for a toddler.
Deliciously Ella do say to add sides to the dish, but adding a few veggies like the company suggests only slightly raises the nutritional profile. This is unlikely to sustain an average adult that isn’t looking for a calorie deficit.
One of her frozen meals is only 275 cals, with just 8.8g of protein and a whopping 2.1g of salt.
The average adult would need at least two of these single-serving ready meals. In order to get close to the guidelines for calories and protein if they’re eating 3 meals a day and several snacks. As an average woman should aim for 2000 cals a day and men 2500 cals.
People with a moderate amount of exercise may need to consume 3 Deliciously Ella frozen meals in one meal. But this would take up all of their daily salt allowances on one meal.
As the Deliciously Ella ready meals are £3 each they aren’t cheap.
The clean eating ready meals also take 45-50 minutes to cook from frozen. In that time you could make a similar recipe from the same ingredients for 90% less and avoid excess packaging and salt.
It’s difficult to tell who these ready meals are aimed at, they don’t appear to be marketed towards people looking to lose weight. But it’s difficult to see how the average adult could consume them and not have a significant calorie deficit.
Also Deliciously Ella has recently launched a frozen chocolate fudge brownie, but the main ingredient is coconut sugar. There’s limited evidence that this trendy sugar is any healthier than cane sugar, as it’s still added sugar and counts as an unhealthy free-sugar.
Deliciously Ella brownies are just as sweet as other desserts and some worry it may do more harm than good as it makes a treat item seem “guilt-free”.
What do you think of these ready meals by Deliciously Ella? Let us know in the comments below.
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If I were Ella’s Kitchen I’d be considering my options. They already do a range of fridge ready meals for kids which are similarly sized.
Ridiculous. She should of chosen a different name. Deliciously Ella is too similar to Ella’s kitchen.
These meals are just designed for people with an eating disorder. Who is going to wait 50 mins to cook a so called convenience meal??! Just get an instant pot and cook in bulk!!
I saw these in Tesco, could not believe how tiny they were and so expensive!
I accidentally bought these on offer the other day presuming they could be microwaved. To be fair it was quite a nice tasty lunch once it eventually cooked but I won’t buy again
I’d never heard of deliciously Ella before and thought this article was going to be about Ella’s Kitchen expanding into the adult food market. As someone above said the names are too similar.
(This article did remind me of that classic Mrs Meldrum AD where she added just 3 frozen cubes of Ella’s Kitchen veg to her spag bol for 5 but if following guidelines she would have needed almost a whole bag 😂)
I think it ties in well with having smaller meals but more of them. Yes, it’s not cheap but I don’t think she ever suggested her frozen meals should be a staple in anyone’s diet. It’s an option and for those who need/want vegan AND gluten free options, it’s great.
I also think it would help with the overeating we can see in the average person. Plus you can get calories from other sources too, not just the solid food you eat. All in all, I don’t think there is an issue with them. It’s not for everyone but I personally love that there is an alternative to the average frozen meal, that’s not much cheaper and it’s full of crap.
But these meals have over 2g of salt per portion. If you had 6 meals a day all with 12g that’s a dangerous level of salt.
I think it encourages food disorders, I’ve never seen Ella Woodward go on about eating smaller but more meals. I doubt she would eat these herself, she does have a nanny, housekeeper and cook after all.