Lifestyle Medicine - baking to improve physical and mental health

The Sourdough School

Baking eating and sharing bread to improve physical and mental health

A Social Enterprise: Providing Training & Support for Bakers & Healthcare Practitioners to Teach and Socially Prescribe Baking as Lifestyle Medicine.
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Soil Association

Our gardens are certified organic.

Baking as Lifestyle Medicine for Bakers and Clinicians

+44 (0)1604 881274
bookings@sourdough.co.uk
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About Us
Courses
BALM
Student Info
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Pizza therapy - BALM providing a nutritional psychiatry framework in the bakery at Bethlem Royal Hospital
Dr Nitu Bajekal In Conversation
BALM Starts with the soil - Soil is Not Dirt
Grow your own pea shoots
Baking as Lifestyle Medicine: turning shopping into functional movement and a social event to gather ingredients and shop healthily

Pizza therapy - BALM providing a nutritional psychiatry framework in the bakery at Bethlem Royal Hospital

BALM Starts with the soil - Soil is Not Dirt

Grow your own pea shoots

Baking as Lifestyle Medicine: turning shopping into functional movement and a social event to gather ingredients and shop healthily

All Our Courses are either Online or a Combination of Online & in Person

Spend A Week As Part of The Sourdough School Team – 7th to 11th August 2023

Spend A Week As Part of The Sourdough School Team – 7th to 11th August 2023

Open Day: BALM Lunch, Discussion and Demo – Friday 30th June 2023

Open Day: BALM Lunch, Discussion and Demo – Friday 30th June 2023

7 day in person Sourdough Retreat + Certificate in Baking as Lifestyle Medicine

7 day in person Sourdough Retreat + Certificate in Baking as Lifestyle Medicine

5 Day Baking as Lifestyle Medicine Workshop + 1 year Library & Support Access

5 Day Baking as Lifestyle Medicine Workshop + 1 year Library & Support Access

2 year Online Certificate for Bakers: Baking as Lifestyle Medicine

2 year Online Certificate for Bakers: Baking as Lifestyle Medicine

2 Year Online BALM Clinicians Diploma

2 Year Online BALM Clinicians Diploma

Reviews

Julianne

Aug 27, 2022

by Julianne on The Sourdough School

Nutrition and Digestibility-An enriching experience!

Vanessa and the entire Sourdough School Team

The Nutrition and Digestibility year online at the Sourdough School has been a wonderful experience for me. Vanessa is an incredible teacher, activist, and inspiration, and I have found the class to bring something both intellectual and spiritual to the table. Thanks to her and to all of you working there, I feel my take-away is not just additional knowledge, but a healthier way of life and some inner peace. Thank you!

See more reviews here.

BALM – Baking eating & sharing bread as preventative healthcare

Home Bakers – Baking for Health

Home Bakers – Baking for Health

BALM for professional bakers, chefs, and people feeding their community

BALM for professional bakers, chefs, and people feeding their community

BALM for Healthcare Professionals & Link Workers

BALM for Healthcare Professionals & Link Workers

A NEW APPROACH

👉🏻 For the past 3 years we’ve been working on something incredible … prescription sourdough bread making courses for our @sourdoughclub members

📈We have had amazing advances in healthcare, but there is no pill to cure poor diet. The best medicine is prevention via a healthy lifestyle, and many studies have shown that people who eat healthily and exercise regularly sleep better, have less anxiety and depression, have more energy, and lower their risk of chronic illness overall.

🙌 Vanessa’s work on Bread & the Impact on the Gut Microbiome has been turned into something extraordinary. Prescription bread-making courses as a lifestyle intervention, and the Bread Protocol we teach here is designed to address the way you live, exploring behaviour related to nutrition, physical activity, stress management, sleep, social support and environmental exposures. These courses are 12 weeks long, and designed to maintain health and prevent disease not just in individuals bit in patients and populations, so we have 2 ways to enrol on a course:

1️⃣ SOCIAL PRESCRIPTION
If your doctor or healthcare practitioner is one of our Sourdough School graduates and they feel that this bread-making prescription course is something that will improve your health, then they may can prescribe the course for you as a social prescription free.

2️⃣ SELF PRESCRIPTION
You can self-prescribe these courses by enrolling yourself on a course to improve your health and wellbeing.

📰 If you are interested in learning more about the prescription courses then please sign up to the newsletters as we will be announcing their launch over the coming weeks and months.

@vanessakimbell
@drmiguelmateas
@dralexdavidson
@dksherratt

#lifestylemedicine #preventativemedicine #systemschange #socialprescribingday #socialprescribing

🧘 LAST ORDERS TODAY 🧘 I’m prepping the st

🧘 LAST ORDERS TODAY 🧘

I’m prepping the starters to post out on Thursday.

I was thinking why sourdough all these years? I guess it’s because is alive… it’s a culture of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria. We might like to think we can control it, but we can’t control everything. Things change when we bake. The flour changes, the ambient temperature changes, or something happens during the middle of the day and your baking routine changes.

We can be very critical of ourselves. Starting the day by looking in the mirror and criticising our physical appearance. Or looking at something we’ve done or said and overanalysing it. Often, without realising, some of us can be incredibly negative.
It’s the same with bread. I notice that many people are self-depreciating and, while they aspire to make beautiful loaves, they have a distinct lack of acceptance that creating a really aesthetically stunning loaves takes time. It’s an art. It takes many years to be able to understand the nuances of each flour and how each one behaves to create bread. There is no instant fix. And I wouldn’t want there to be.

If you want an instant fix, go out and buy a packet mix – that way the work is done for you. In sourdough there’s no instant fix. That is the whole point of it really. That’s why we celebrate when we do make those incredibly beautiful loaves. And what you are actually celebrating isn’t high levels of gluten or high levels of hydration. It’s that person’s ability to have understood and connected to the flour, to their environment, to the yeast, to the timings and rhythm and everything coming together to create something that is joyous to eat.

To learn more about what we do here at The Sourdough Club and the courses we teach, follow the link in the bio to read

#mindfulbaking #sourdough #sourdoughsclub #bread #sourdoughlove #sourdoughlover #naturalleavened #leavening #realbread #breadmaking #bakebread #makebread #makerealbread #sourdoughstories #bakingforlove #bakingtherapy #sourdoughbaking

🧂 ARTISAN INGREDIENTS FOR ARTISAN BREAD 🧂 A

🧂 ARTISAN INGREDIENTS FOR ARTISAN BREAD 🧂

Artisan bread starts with artisan ingredients. Honest ingredients that have been grown and harvested with respect for both the people and the earth. The flour has to be organic, the water chlorine free and the yeast has to be sourdough, and so it follows that the salt has to be similarly harvested with principles that are in synergy with our own. Salt making was, up until the industrial revolution, an artisanal craft. Much like bread making salt is also an artisan product that has been industrialised, so we use a hand-harvested salt in our bread.
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In our shop, we sell unrefined salt specifically for sourdough - Natural salt contains all of its trace minerals and other elements that are naturally a part of its origin. Our salt is not exposed to chemicals and does not contain anti-caking agents.
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Follow the link in our bio to our shop, where you can find the best artisan ingredients for your bread!
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#artisan #salt #iamamember #sourdoughclub #sourdough #sourdoughbread #naturallyleavened #realbread #sourdoughbaking #bakingbread #breadmaking #homebakedbread #sourdoughlove

DID YOU KNOW WE HAVE AN ONLINE SHOP & CAN PURCHASE

DID YOU KNOW WE HAVE AN ONLINE SHOP & CAN PURCHASE MY WHITE SOURDOUGH STARTER?
(with worldwide delivery)
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I have several sourdough starters but The French white starter is one that I have been using since I was 11 years old and originates in the bakery I grew up baking within France. It takes a bit longer to reach it’s peak and is generally slower and sweeter, and much more forgiving of being neglected for a week, so the one I recommend for beginners. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We have verbal confirmation that the starter originated over 115 years ago and If you swipe right in the video you can listen to me chatting to one of the older residents of the village confirming that bakery did not shut during the war either .. & it has been maintained ever since... it’s a lovely story. Although the microbes double every 20 – 30 minutes when they are refreshed ... so it is either over a century old or 30 minutes old depending on how you want to look at it. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
You can purchase a pot of my starter, along with a grey moon kilner jar & a mini video course on looking after your starter.
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TAP THE PICTURE TO SHOP.

Swipe right to see the amazing video of the French bakery where the starter originated from @vanessakimbell has been baking with this starter for over 20 years … and first baked almost 40 years ago with it …#romantic
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#breadbosses #breadporn #flourwatersalt #breadtalk #bread #breadstagram #sourdough #sourdoughschool #bread #sourdoughlove #sourdoughlover #naturalleavened #leavening #levain #realbread #breadmaking #bakebread #makebread #makerealbread #learntobakebread #breadmakingclass #sourdoughstories #bakingforlove #bakingtherapy #sourdoughbaking #bannetons #bakery

🌾 BARLEY - DO AS THE ROMANS DO 🌾
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Oats & Barley. We love both, but this week we have been diving to barley with our students, learning about nutritional value, what role plays in supporting key butyrate producers for gut health and why gladiators were call 'barley-eaters'!
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And naturally, we will be talking about how we can incorporate barley into our baking and our botanical blends.
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To find out more, become a student of the Sourdough Club!
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#grains #wheat #einkorn #emmer #spelt #heritagegrains #freshlymilledflour #milledflour #milling #freshlymilled #botanicalblend #fromscratch #unrefined #mockmillproud #mockmill

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