The Sourdough School

BALM – Proven as one of the healthiest approaches to bread in the world.

Based in the walled gardens of Dr. Vanessa Kimbell's beautiful Victorian home in rural Northamptonshire, UK, we tutor individuals and train bakers and healthcare professionals in Baking as Lifestyle Medicine (BALM). Personalising bread to your lifestyle, gut microbiome, and unique genetics for optimal health—tailoring fermentation, fibre, and diversity so that your daily bread becomes the foundation of your health.

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BALM Empowering environmentalism in Patients and Students supports mental health

Learning Objective

This feature is about the role of BALM in empowering the individual and collective actions that can make a difference and sharing how they can impact climate action.  Our role is to encourage education and awareness about climate change and its solutions. Fostering a sense of empowerment and optimism can motivate individuals and communities to engage in climate action and contribute to the overall effort to mitigate climate change which in this feature, you will learn now, can help support mental health.

Learning Outcome

Teachers and prescribers undersstand how BALM activism can help to combat feelings of hopelessness in patients through empowering them to combat climate change in the way they bake, eat and share bread every day.

Learning Objective

This feature is about the role of BALM in empowering the individual and collective actions that can make a difference and sharing how they can impact climate action.  Our role is to encourage education and awareness about climate change and its solutions. Fostering a sense of empowerment and optimism can motivate individuals and communities to engage in climate action and contribute to the overall effort to mitigate climate change which in this feature, you will learn now, can help support mental health.

Part of the rythum of baking is the opportunity to build in time outside. We tie this in to connecting to botanical blend flour and the active support of farmers in the way we approach baking

One of the key aspects of BALM is empowering activism. As a prescriber or as as a teacher, you are in a position to educate, inspire and empower, and this is one of the key messages in the protocol.  It is about purpose, and the feelings of hopelessness that some people have is often connected to a sense of doom, and impending climate collapse and a sense in many ways; the current climate change narrative can contribute to feelings of disempowerment for some people. This can happen for several reasons:

The Overwhelming scale of climate change and its consequences can make individuals feel like their actions and choices have little impact on the overall problem. This sense of powerlessness can lead to apathy or resignation.

Focus on negative outcomes: Much of the climate change narrative focuses on the negative impacts and worst-case scenarios, which can contribute to a sense of doom and hopelessness, making people feel disempowered.

Complexity: Climate change is a complex issue that involves intricate interactions between the environment, society, and the economy. This complexity can make it difficult for individuals to understand the issue fully and identify ways to take meaningful action.

Conflicting information: The presence of conflicting information and climate change denial can create confusion and scepticism, making it challenging for individuals to feel confident about the actions they can take to address the problem.

Lack of clear solutions: While there are many potential solutions to address climate change, the lack of consensus on the most effective strategies can contribute to feelings of disempowerment.

To counteract these feelings of disempowerment, it is important to promote positive messaging highlighting individual and collective actions that can make a difference. This is where our Botanical Blend Flour comes into play, and when we teach people how to create their own blends, what we are actually doing in empowering them to be activists every day is part of the way they approach to bread. Our role as teachers is to encourage education and awareness about climate change and its solutions. BALM is about fostering a sense of empowerment and optimism which can motivate individuals and communities to engage in climate action and contribute to the overall effort to mitigate climate change  – we call it a delicious disruption!

 

Learning Outcome

Teachers and prescribers undersstand how BALM activism can help to combat feelings of hopelessness in patients through empowering them to combat climate change in the way they bake, eat and share bread every day.

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All reasonable care is taken when advising about health aspects of bread, but the information that we share is not intended to take the place of treatment by a qualified medical practitioner. You must seek professional advice if you are in any doubt about any medical condition. Any application of the ideas and information contained on this website is at the reader's sole discretion and risk.

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