The Sourdough School

BREAD COURSES || NUTRITION TRAINING || DIGESTION ANALYSIS || PERSONALISED BREAD

BAKING WITH THE HANDS OF AN ARTISAN AND THE MIND OF A CLINICIAN

Discover Baking as Lifestyle Medicine, and how to bake Proven Bread, from the walled gardens of Dr Vanessa Kimbell's beautiful Victorian home in rural Northamptonshire, where we train healthcare professionals, teach bakers, and support individuals to bake personalised bread using nutrigenetics and gut health assessments.

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PROVEN: Your Invitation -  12 week system reset
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Botanical Blend flour on the Sourdough School on the table ready to bake with
Proven Bread being made iby hand in the Artisan Bakery
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Unpasteurised cheese
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PROVEN: Your Invitation – 12 week system reset

From: £24.99 every 2 weeks for 12 weeks + £499.00 registration fee

They said it couldn’t be done.
What they meant was that they couldn’t do it.

But it can be done — I have built something that works, and this the the 2nd run of Proven. Why? because my dietary intervention studies showed measurable shifts in both mental-health markers and gut-health indicators. But most research never makes it past the paper it is written on, but then you may already have worked out that I don’t think like most people.

It’s time to use that evidence.

You are being invited into a 12-week reset built on the same clinical architecture. Proven recreates, in real life, the exact structure of my intervention: twelve weeks of deliberate eating, guided reflection and weekly symptom tracking. It gives you the chance to witness change in the most important place of all — your own body.

By Dr Vanessa Kimbell — The Sourdough School

Enrolment closes 11th January at 10pm.

What are you being invited into?

You’re being invited into a 12-week reset built on the structure of a real dietary intervention — a programme that lets you watch your own physiology shift in real time. You’ll learn how fibre, fermentation and botanical diversity change the way your gut and brain communicate, and why reclaiming bread is one of the simplest, strongest acts of taking back your health. This is not theory. It is your turn to step into the system — and feel what changes when you do.

You don’t have to bake — we do that for you. We send the bread; your only task is to enjoy your Proven loaf and pay attention to how you feel as the weeks unfold. Every two weeks, a handcrafted, long-fermented Proven loaf arrives at your door, ready-sliced. And each week, you join me live as we explore what happens when you eat bread created for your biology rather than the industrial bottom line.

• 12 x one-hour live sessions supporting your weekly tracker
• 30+ plant ingredients
• 18-hour live-culture fermentation
• 6g fibre per slice • 24 slices per loaf
• Hand-blended, stone-milled flour
• Regeneratively grown British grains and botanicals
• No synthetic fortification

Delivery cost is UK ONLY and £9.99 for packaging & delivery at checkout.

There are limited numbers of subscriptions available – due to the small batch Process. – Please check contraindications BEFORE ordering. 

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SKU: N/A Categories: Courses, Featured, Reset your gut Course Tag: refuse to bend an
  • Description
  • 12-Week Learning Schedule
  • Proving it for yourself - Your 12 week self Assessment
  • Ingredients and allergens
  • What the Research Showed
  • This is the line. Your boundary. This is bread without compromise.
  • Who This Bread Particularly Supports
  • When Proven Bread™ Is Not Appropriate
  • What Proven Bread™ Is and How It Came to Be
  • Terms & Conditions

PROVEN: YOUR TURN

I’m inviting you to step into what they called impossible.

The food industry said it was impossible.
Turns out it wasn’t. Proven reconnects the system to make possibly the healthiest bread in the world and it  exists because someone had to refuse the way bread has been diminished. It stands where the food system said it was impossible to stand. The system is broken but what Proen does is demonstrate that the system can be re-connected — and you are being invited to be the connection. when you realign the system you realign with it.  If you want to read the dietary intervention studies yourself, you can. I’ve made them available — because nothing about this is marketing. It’s evidence.

What is Proven Bread?

Yes Proven is an evidence based approach to healthy bread.  You can read about it here – but  the extraordinary part is not the bread itself.  This is your turn to take pat in a  real, lived protocol that lets them observe their own physiology shifting. So the extraordinary part is that this is a structured, 12-week dietary intervention delivered through a loaf of bread. The time frame is deliberate. Twelve weeks is long enough for your physiology to shift in meaningful ways — digestion, energy, mood, sleep, and microbial patterns.

You are stepping into a programme designed with precision: a rhythm, a structure, and a level of intention rarely applied to everyday food. This isn’t about hoping bread helps. It’s about observing what happens when you eat bread built for your biology. Proven is a course, but it is also a challenge to the food system itself — a refusal to accept industrial bread, depleted soils, anonymous supply chains and the myth that everyday food cannot be a clinical tool

Proven is an invitation to become a living part of a system change and YOU are the system.

This I where you learn to  draw your boundary. In life we are so often made tom compromise, But you don’t have to compromise with your bread. With Proven you literally become the connection to the system. 
Soil, farmer, miller, baker – you and your gut microbes. A living chain that industrial bread has flattened into oblivion.
This is where you draw a line in the sand with your bread. Twenty-four slices delivered every two weeks.
Twelve weeks of stepping out of the system that is failing all of us.

You activate the system

You are being invited into the system that connects the farmers, and the millers and baker  –  people like Henry Astor, Hodmedods and Peter Cook — a system built on soil, biodiversity, craft and integrity. They grow, they mill, they bake. You close the loop.

Because they devalued bread to the cheapest commodity on the shelf, we have ruined the palate — and our health has gone with it. Bread has been stripped of fibre, fermentation, flavour and meaning. We have accepted food designed to tolerate industrial processes rather than food designed to support human physiology. We are now living with the consequences: dysregulated metabolisms, collapsing microbiomes, children who cannot concentrate, adults who cannot sleep or digest or stabilise their mood. The system tells you it is your fault. It is not. It is the food.

They said it couldn’t be done. But it can be done, because we’ve already done it — twice. We built a system that reconnects soil health, regenerative farming, artisan craft, microbiome science, nutrigenetics, clinical insight and daily human behaviour into one coherent, functioning model — and then we made it edible. A staple food became a clinical interface.

And here is what sits beneath that achievement: We took the tools of clinical research, microbial science, nutrigenetics, fermentation and regenerative agriculture and fused them into a single, functioning system — not theoretically, but operationally, commercially and culturally. Proven is the refusal to accept every compromise the industrial food system demanded: cheaper grain, shorter fermentations, reduced fibre, simplified ingredients, abandoned integrity. This is the outcome of a decade-long experiment that proved, in data, that bread — the most dismissed, underestimated, industrialised food in the West — can be recalibrated into a biological, agricultural and behavioural intervention.

If this doesn’t blow your mind, it should.

Because we are not trying to “fix bread.” Proven is a total reset.
It exists to challenge the operating assumptions of the entire food system. We have built something the industry said was impossible — and this is your invitation to be part of it. Proven puts the power of evidence into the hands of ordinary people: mothers, daughters, bakers, sons, husbands, teachers, clinicians. You are the connectors — the living links between soil, grain, fermentation, physiology and culture.

And it is only because of the stubborn, unwavering support of people like Hodmedods, Henry Astor, Peter Cook, and the small network who refused to let this vision die, that we can now show, unequivocally, that the system can be reconnected.

So are you in?  Are you ready to stop accepting the food system as it is and take part in what comes after it? I

If you are, then come with us — and it starts now.

Enrolment closes 11th January at 10pm.

12-Week Learning Schedule

You are the System
Vanessa Kimbell teaching bread and health in the school
Vanessa will be in The Sourdough School LIVE sessions each week to answer your questions.

This is the first-ever learning programme that transforms the simple act of eating bread into a structured, empowering practice. Combining microbiome science lifestyle medicine, and nutrigenetics to reconnect food, body, and the wider food system.]]Whn you enrol you will be sent an email with the details of a zoom session held weekly on a Monday evening

YOUR LIVE SESSIONS BEGIN ON MONDAY 12th JANUARY at 6pm

Topic: Proven 12 weekly gut Reset Programme
Time: Jan 12, 2026 18:00 London Time
Every week on Mon, 12 occurrence – with an extra one at the end for anyone wishing to chat about anything extra.

12-WEEK LEARNING SCHEDULE
Baking as Lifestyle Medicine in Action
This isn’t just a subscription. It’s a conversation — between you, your body, your microbes, the soil, the farmers, and the people who’ve shaped this bread. Each week you’ll receive not just a loaf, but a lesson. You’ll be asked to check in — not just with the system, but with yourself. This is about learning to nourish, to notice, and to connect. You are not a passive participant. You are the connector. This is the system, and you are at the heart of it.

WEEK 0: BASELINE SELF-ASSESSMENT
Focus: This week we will focus on how does bread make you feel — physically, emotionally, digestively — before you begin?
Lesson: You can’t measure change without knowing where you started. This self-assessment will help you track what shifts over the next 12 weeks.
Action: Download and complete the baseline form before your first delivery. This is your anchor.

WEEK 1: WELCOME, STORAGE & HOW TO BEGIN
Focus: A loaf is arriving — and with it, something more
Lesson: This week is about starting gently. Learn how to store, slice, and enjoy your bread. If you’re histamine- or blood sugar-sensitive, this guidance matters more than ever.
Action: Slice and store your loaf. Take a quiet moment to notice how you feel. If you’d like to share a photo or reflection, tag @sourdoughclub or @vanessakimbell on Instagram.

WEEK 2: TOLERANCE TRAINING & DIGESTIVE AWARENESS
Focus: Eating slowly, kindly, consciously
Lesson: This week isn’t about restriction. It’s about respect — for your body, your digestion, your nervous system. Especially if you’re rebuilding tolerance after antibiotics, IBS, or histamine issues.
Action: Sit down. Breathe. Eat slowly. Reintroduce a more fibrous or gluten-containing slice, and notice how your gut responds. Jot down what you learn. This is you, learning to listen.

WEEK 3: SEQUENCED EATING & MEAL COMPOSITION
Focus: It’s not what you eat — it’s how and when
Lesson: The order you eat your food affects blood sugar and microbiome health. Eat your greens and dressing first, add protein and fat, then your bread. Making a vinegar is part of this week’s practice.
Action: Make a simple vinegar dressing. Create a sequenced plate using one of my recipes — perhaps the dal, curry, or probiotic butter salad — and eat mindfully. Share your plate if you’d like: @sourdoughclub / @vanessakimbell.

WEEK 4: THE SIX PILLARS OF LIFESTYLE MEDICINE
Focus: Bread as a tool for real change
Lesson: The six pillars — nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, connection, and reducing harm — are more than theory. You’ll begin to see how one loaf touches every part of your life.
Action: Share your bread with a friend. Dance to a song you love. Eat a slice in the evening and feel how it helps you sleep. Say no to something ultra-processed. Say yes to nourishment. This is participation.

WEEK 5: SOIL – SEED – STARTER
Focus: Where your nourishment begins
Lesson: Before this bread reached your plate, it began as a seed in living soil. That cycle continues in your starter — and in your gut.
Action: Learn the name of your farmer or miller. Think about the story in each slice. This is food with roots.

WEEK 6: FLOUR & MILLING METHODS
Focus: Stone-ground, slow, and full of life
Lesson: Most flour is lifeless. This isn’t. Discover how stone milling preserves nutrients and why flour integrity matters to your microbes — and to the people growing your grain.
Action: Compare a commercial flour with your Botanical Blend. Feel it. Smell it. Think about what you’re feeding — not just yourself, but your gut garden.

WEEK 7: FIBRE & DIETARY DIVERSITY
Focus: 30 plants in a single loaf — and counting
Lesson: Fibre feeds your microbiome. Polyphenols shape it. Diversity sustains it. This is how we rebuild resilience.
Action: Add more plants to your plate this week. Make a symbiotic meal — a dal, a curry, or one of my probiotic butter salads — and count how many different ingredients you’re feeding your gut.

WEEK 8: THE MICROBIOME & MENTAL HEALTH
Focus: Mood, microbes, and the messages between
Lesson: Your microbes don’t just digest food. They talk to your brain. They modulate mood, emotion, and cognition. This week we focus on that quiet dialogue.
Action: Count how many new diverse foods you’ve eaten this week. Just count. And reflect on how you’ve felt — physically and mentally.

WEEK 9: SYMBIOTIC & MINDFUL EATING
Focus: Food synergy — not just ingredients, but relationships
Lesson: The bread works best in context — alongside fermented foods, bitter greens, seasonal veg, and mindful pauses. This is eating as ecosystem.
Action: Build a symbiotic plate. Sit down. Eat with attention and appreciation. If it feels right, share it with someone — or with me, @sourdoughclub.

WEEK 10: DIGESTION & TOLERANCE PRACTICE
Focus: Calming the gut, feeding with care
Lesson: If you’ve been sensitive to gluten, fibre, or fermentation, this week is about building back gently. Understanding your vagus nerve, chewing slowly, and giving the body what it needs — not what it fears.
Action: Eat a slightly more complex meal or slice. Sit. Chew. Breathe. Track how you feel. This is gut training, not gut testing.

WEEK 11: GENETICS, NEURODIVERGENCE & FAMILY HISTORY
Focus: The blueprint behind the bread
Lesson: Our genes — MTHFR, B-vitamin pathways, neurodivergence — all influence how we respond to food. And our bread can support these needs, when baked with care.
Action: Talk to someone in your family about health history. Consider what you’ve inherited — and what you might prevent. Reach out to someone neurodivergent and reflect on how food can support their wellbeing.

WEEK 12: ACTIVISM, CONNECTION & SOCIAL CHANGE
Focus: This is more than bread
Lesson: What you’ve learned isn’t just personal. It’s planetary. This is bread as activism — as connection — as a form of social medicine.
Action: Share your bread. Share what you’ve learned. You’re not just eating differently — you’re living differently. And you are now part of something much bigger.


Proving it for yourself - Your 12 week self Assessment

What You Are Doing Over 12 Weeks

Proven is not a subscription. It is a structured, 12-week dietary intervention delivered through a loaf of bread. The time frame is deliberate. Twelve weeks is long enough for your physiology to shift in meaningful ways — digestion, energy, mood, sleep, and microbial patterns.

You are stepping into a programme designed with precision:
a rhythm, a structure, and a level of intention rarely applied to everyday food.

This isn’t about hoping bread helps.
It’s about observing what happens when you eat bread built for your biology.


Why the Live Sessions Matter

The live sessions are the anchor of the programme.
They give you:

• clarity on what’s happening in your body
• context for any changes you notice
• the science behind the formulation
• a framework for understanding your own data
• a weekly touchpoint that keeps the protocol steady

You are not left to guess or interpret your experience alone.
The sessions are there to help you recognise — in real time — what shifts, and why.


Ingredients and allergens

There are now to loves in the Proven Range. Seeded and Seeded with Cherries, Cranberries and Pistachios - the two slices.
Please note that there are NUTS in the bread. There are now to loves in the Proven Range. There are 2 loaves – seeded and Seeded with Cherries, Cranberries and PistachiosThes re the two slices.

Please check the allergens in Proven Before Subscribing.

Proven is not an everyday supermarket loaf. It is a deliberately formulated, botanically diverse, long-fermented bread created for people who actively want a high-fibre, functional food to support their gut and overall health. Every ingredient in these loaves has been chosen for its nutritional complexity, microbial impact, and role within the BALM Protocol.

Because of this, Proven is not suitable for everyone.

These loaves contain multiple major allergens — including wheat, rye, barley, oats, sesame, and in one version, nuts (pistachios) — and are made in an environment that handles nuts. They are also very high in fibre and dense with seeds, botanicals and polyphenols. For some people, this is therapeutic. For others, especially those with allergies or difficulties digesting seeds, it may not be appropriate.

If you have a nut allergy, these loaves are not suitable for you.
If you are coeliac, these loaves are not suitable for yo
If you struggle to digest seeds, you may prefer our unseeded formulations.

Proven exists for those who actively seek a nourishing, slow-fermented, botanically rich bread — people who want a loaf that works with, rather than against, their gut. It is designed for intentional eating, not casual consumption.

In short: this is a specialist bread for people who choose it with purpose.
If you are not that person, it may not be the right loaf for you — and that’s entirely as it should be.


PROVEN SIGNATURE SEEDED WITH CHERRIES, CRANBERRIES & PISTACHIOS
Ingredients:
Meadow Blend (70%) (spelt, einkorn, emmer, barley, naked oats, rye, buckwheat, dried peas, dried nettle leaf, dried edible meadow flowers (cornflower, mallow flower, rose petals), poppy seeds);
Botanical Blend (30%) (black wheat, black barley, spelt, rye, emmer, lentils, dried peas, quinoa, poppy seeds, nettle leaf, kombu seaweed, ground coffee, hibiscus flowers, cocoa husk);
Seed Mix (23%) (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, linseeds, sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, chia seeds, hemp seeds, poppy seeds);
Cranberries (sweetened);
Pistachios;
Raisins;
Sultanas;
Currants;
Salt;
Sourdough starter (water, wheat flour);
Butter (used to line tins).

Allergens: wheat, spelt, einkorn, emmer, rye, barley, oats, sesame, nuts (pistachios), dairy (butter).

Not suitable for anyone with a nut allergy.
Not suitable for coeliacs.

May contain traces of: other cereals containing gluten, other tree nuts, and soya.

Storage: The Proven Box is designed to be a freezer box. On arrival, take out 2–3 days’ worth of bread and wrap the slices in a clean towel. Place the whole box with the remaining bread straight into the freezer.
This bread will last 7 days fresh, but freezing is best if you are managing blood sugar or histamine symptoms.

Suitable for vegetarians.


PROVEN SIGNATURE SEEDED SOURDOUGH
Ingredients:
Meadow Blend (70%) (spelt, einkorn, emmer, barley, naked oats, rye, buckwheat, dried peas, dried nettle leaf, dried edible meadow flowers (cornflower, mallow flower, rose petals), poppy seeds);
Botanical Blend (30%) (black wheat, black barley, spelt, rye, emmer, lentils, dried peas, quinoa, poppy seeds, nettle leaf, kombu seaweed, ground coffee, hibiscus flowers, cocoa husk);
Seed Mix (23%) (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, linseeds, sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, chia seeds, hemp seeds, poppy seeds);
Salt;
Sourdough starter (water, wheat flour);
Butter (used to line tins).

Allergens: wheat, spelt, einkorn, emmer, rye, barley, oats, sesame, dairy (butter).

Not suitable for anyone with a nut allergy.
Not suitable for coeliacs.

May contain traces of: other cereals containing gluten, tree nuts, and soya.

Storage: The Proven Box is designed to be a freezer box. On arrival, take out 2–3 days’ worth of bread and wrap the slices in a clean towel. Place the whole box with the remaining bread straight into the freezer.
This bread will last 7 days fresh, but freezing is best if you are managing blood sugar or histamine symptoms.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

  • This bread is made using traditional long fermentation with a natural sourdough starter, which improves digestibility and may reduce gluten load.
  • No artificial additives or preservatives.
  • Suitable for vegetarians but NOT vegans.
  • Not suitable for coeliacs.
  • All flours are stone-milled and include the full grain, unless stated otherwise.
  • Ingredients are  sourced where possible from British Farmers  and selected for nutritional diversity, fibre content, and polyphenol richness in line with the BALM Protocol.
  • Storage:

What the Research Showed

It took ten years. A group of people who refused to accept the status quo. And documented evidence — microbial, symptomatic, biochemical — proving that a loaf of bread, formulated with intention, can meaningfully change human physiology. The food industry said it was impossible. Turns out it wasn’t

What the Research Showed

I want to be transparent about what my doctoral research found. These were small-scale dietary intervention studies — not large clinical trials — but the results were consistent and, in some cases, remarkable. The kind of results that made reviewers pause.

Microbiome changes

(measured via stool testing over 12 weeks)

All participants in the study showed positive changes to their gut microbiome.

In one participant, Akkermansia — a bacterium associated with gut barrier health and metabolic regulation — increased by 4,950%.
Butyrate-producing bacteria, which support gut lining integrity, increased in 44% of participants.

They said you can’t shift the microbiome meaningfully through bread.
The data disagreed.

Self-reported improvements

Participants tracked their own symptoms throughout the 12 weeks:

• 87.5% reported significant overall improvement
• 89% reported clinically significant improvements in mental health measures
• 44% reported improvements in digestive symptoms
• 33% reported improvements in sleep quality

When looking at specific symptoms, participants reported:

• 83% reduction in sleep problems
• 75% reduction in constipation
• 75% reduction in indigestion
• 71% reduction in stress
• 63% reduction in inflammation-related symptoms
• 100% resolution of headaches (in those who reported them)
• 167% improvement in feelings of satiety

These are self-reported outcomes from a small participant group. Individual results varied, and this bread is not a treatment or cure for any medical condition. But these numbers exist. They happened. They were documented.

Individual clinical markers

Some participants also tracked clinical measurements with their healthcare providers. Individual outcomes included:

• One participant lost 7 kg over 9 weeks while eating 300 g of bread daily
• One participant’s blood pressure dropped from 137/89 to 126/66
• One participant reversed a pre-diabetes diagnosis within 12 months
• One participant’s eczema visibly healed over 8–10 weeks

These are individual case outcomes, not guaranteed results. But they are real outcomes from real people eating real bread — the kind of outcomes that aren’t supposed to come from a loaf.


What Makes This Bread Different? The science

Laboratory analysis conducted as part of my doctoral research compared PROVEN™ Bread with standard white and wholemeal loaves:

• Nearly 3× more polyphenols than wholemeal bread
• 8× more polyphenols than white bread
• 2× the antioxidant activity of wholemeal bread
• 3× the antioxidant activity of white bread
• 10 unique polyphenols not found in standard bread
• Contains caffeoylcholine — a compound not detected in white or wholemeal bread

These compounds emerge from the botanical blend, the heritage grains and the long fermentation process. This is what I mean when I call it biohacked bread: fermentation is creating beneficial compounds, not merely preserving what was already there.

They said bread is just bread.
They were wrong.

This is the line. Your boundary. This is bread without compromise.

Proven is choosing to opt out of a system designed to extract from you at every point. Cheap bread isn’t cheap. The cost is just hidden — paid by the soil, the planet, the farmer, the grain, your gut, your energy, your focus and eventually, your health becomes the profit margin for pharmaceutical companies. Because you always pay. Just not at the till

Yes it is expensive and yes you may hesitate when you see the price. Not because the bread isn’t worth it, but because you’ve been conditioned to believe that bread should be cheap. Cheap as filler. Cheap as the background noise of your diet. Cheap enough that you never stop to question what it’s doing to your body.

But something in you knows that cheap bread has cost you far more than money.

I haven;t produced  “artisan loaf.” I produced a bread to realign the system to work properly without compromise. Our food system has been degrading for year but this is now accelerating  and if you are reading this then. you already know something is off — and it’s reflected in the way we feel. Energy that won’t stabilise, digestion that won’t settle, mood that won’t hold, focus that slips at the wrong times.

You’re not confused. You’re not wrong.

You’ve simply been drowned in noise: conflicting advice, industrial food, supermarket aisles lined with bullshit health marketing slogans — slogans that mean nothing.

If you want bread that actually nourishes. If you want integrity. If you want to understand why bread — the most basic food in your life — has stopped feeling like food, this is where Proven comes in.

Proven is not cheap, because cheap is the problem. It is long-fermented, botanically complex, hand-crafted, clinically informed — designed to work with your biology, not override it.

And when you understand the system — soil, fermentation, fibre, botanicals, microbial function — the price stops looking high. It starts looking honest.

People who choose Proven aren’t naïve. They’re done. Done with feeling off. Done with tolerating bread that undermines their health. Done with being told that wanting to feel well is unreasonable.

If that’s you, you already understand why Proven exists.

The word companion comes from com panis — “with bread.” Bread has always meant connection. Proven honours that lineage: through friendship, through craft, through the people I love who helped shape it.

Bread made with real integrity has become so rare that baking it — and buying it — is now a practical act of defiance.

Fine.

We’ll be the defiant ones.

Who This Bread Particularly Supports

Dr Vanessa Kimbell’s work in nutrigenetics, mental health and gut health informs every element of this bread’s design. from 30+ ingredients, the long fermentation to that feeling of empowerment, knowing every slice supports soil, farmers, and your gut microbiome.

Proven Bread™ was formulated for people who need more than just sustenance: for those seeking a therapeutic relationship with bread that nourishes both body and mind.

Dr Vanessa Kimbell’s work in nutrigenetics, mental health and gut health informs every element of this bread’s design. The formula have been designed with  fibre, fermentation and botanical diversity.

Vanessa has particularly worked on this being supportive for individuals living with:
• neurodivergence (including ADHD, autism and anxiety)
• MTHFR polymorphisms or impaired folate (B9) metabolism
• B-vitamin insufficiency affecting energy and neurological steadiness (with a primary focus on folate-related pathways)
• blood-sugar instability or energy crashes
• histamine sensitivity
• mood dysregulation linked to the gut–brain axis• digestive discomfort, including sluggish digestion, constipation or post-antibiotic dysbiosis
• recovery from ultra-processed food diets or restricted eating patterns

This is bread that pays attention to how your system functions — particularly if your system doesn’t fit neatly within the “norm”.

It was developed to provide naturally occurring, highly bioavailable folate (B9); to support steadier post-prandial blood-sugar responses; and to enhance microbial richness through long fermentation, fibre-rich prebiotics and the inclusion of thirty diverse plant ingredients. These botanicals were selected because they deliver polyphenols, antioxidants and bioactive compounds shown in the Puratos LC-MS metabolomic analysis to promote microbial diversity and resilience (pages 3, 4, and 6–12)

My Bread Analysis

While anyone can enjoy this bread as part of a nourishing diet, it is especially well suited for people who:
• want a practical, food-based way to support mental well-being
• wish to increase fermented fibre in a structured, informed and safe way
• are working with a functional GP, nutritionist or mental-health professional and want to integrate food into their care plan

If you’ve been advised to increase fibre, improve microbial diversity or support digestive balance, this bread is designed with those considerations in mind.

When Proven Bread™ Is Not Appropriate

If you are unsure, please consult your GP or healthcare provider before subscribing.

Who Proven is not for

Proven was designed for everyone, but it is not suitable for all. That honesty is part of the integrity.

This bread contains gluten.

Our loaves are made from traditionally grown wheat, barley, rye, spelt, and other gluten-containing grains. Although long fermentation breaks down some gluten and phytates, this bread is not gluten-free.

If you have coeliac disease, a medically diagnosed wheat or gluten allergy, or any immune-mediated response to cereals — this bread is not for you. Please do not consume it.

This bread is not vegan.

We use real butter to line our tins.

Allergen notice

Our loaves contain a wide range of ingredients, made in a bakery with multiple product lines. We cannot guarantee against cross-contamination. If you have an allergy to any food including milk, nuts, dairy, sesame, or eggs, we cannot accept you on this course and you must not consume this bread.

There are recipes in my books you can safely adapt at home — but enrolment on this course is not possible for those with allergies.

If you are unsure

Consult your GP or healthcare provider before subscribing. If you experience any adverse reaction, stop eating the bread immediately and seek medical advice.

This bread is rooted in transparency, responsibility, and care — and that includes saying no where needed to protect your health.

.

What Proven Bread™ Is and How It Came to Be

Proven Bread was developed to be a total system change.

Proven Bread ™ is no ordinary loaf. It is has been created according the the BALM Principles and is the result of over two decades of pioneering research by Dr Vanessa Kimbell into the connections between diversity, fermentation, fibre, gut health, and mental health. Developed as part of my doctoral studies, this bread was used in clinical dietary intervention research and stands as The Sourdough School’s  flagship formula within the Diversity Bread ™ range.

This is the also first-ever bread that is a system change in being a UK subscription with a built in learning programme that transforms the simple act of eating bread into a structured, empowering practice combining microbiome science, lifestyle medicine, and nutrigenetics to reconnect food, body, and the wider food system with a 12 week learning programme and a self assessment to monitor how you feel. You are the system.  You change. Your biology changes and it starts the moment you understand that this is about empowering you to support the farmers, the soil and your gut health. They are not separate systems they are one system and tis bread reconnects you to them.

Crafted with 30 unique plant-based ingredients; including grains, seeds, legumes, flowers, and botanicals. It meets the threshold identified by the American Gut Project for significantly enhancing gut microbial diversity.

Each loaf encompasses:

  • My Botanical Blend Flour ™ which is hand blended and milled to order from regeneratively farmed grains by Hodmedods

  • Hand made with my starter and naturally fermented for 18 hours to enhance bioavailability

  • Baked, sliced and then delivered to you in sustainable packaging and pre cut into in 24 slices, with 6g of fibre per slice (12g per two-slice serving, enough to fill the UK’s daily fibre gap)

Proven is more than a loaf, it is a reconnection to the food system as a whole.

From soil to seed, from farmer to miller, from baker to doctor, and finally to the person eating the bread, this is a circular, shared system. And through this model; food as medicine, baking as care, we reawaken the original purpose of bread. To not just feed, but to heal, to connect and to empower.

The development of Proven was supported by many:
Advisors, farmers, scientists, millers, and doctors who helped along the way — including Professor David Veale (King’s College London), Dr Alexandra Davidson, Dr Miguel Mateos,  Nick Saltmarsh and Josiah Meldrum, Ben Johnson, and Baker Peter Cook and family, with encouragement inspiration for many years from Tim Spector, my amazing students over the past two decades and of course my husband parents and children— each contributing insights that shaped the final product.

Terms & Conditions

Vanessa is not at every bake. However Peter and Vanessa have know each other for over 20 years and All Proven Bread™ loaves are baked exclusively for The Sourdough School Ltd by Peter Cook’s Bread, Worcestershire, acting as our appointed contract bakery. The Sourdough School Ltd remains the Food Business Operator (FBO) responsible for the product placed on the market.

TERMS & CONDITIONS These Terms and Conditions (“Terms”) apply to your purchase and participation in the Proven Bread™ Subscription (“Subscription”) from The Sourdough School Ltd, operated by Dr Vanessa Kimbell. By subscribing, you agree to be bound by these Terms in full. Proven Bread™ is a therapeutic loaf designed to support gut, metabolic, hormonal and mental-health considerations. However, it is not suitable for everyone. Anyone with any kind of health condition should consult their healthcare practitioner before subscribing. Proven Bread™ contains wheat, rye, barley, spelt, other gluten-containing grains, and nuts. Although long fermentation lowers gluten and phytates, the loaf is not gluten-free. It must not be consumed by anyone with coeliac disease, a medically diagnosed wheat or gluten allergy, a medically diagnosed nut allergy, or a known immune-mediated response to cereals or nuts. Our loaves are also not suitable for vegans, as real butter is used to line the tins. If you experience any adverse symptoms, you must stop eating the loaf immediately and consult your GP. If you are unsure whether Proven Bread™ is appropriate for you, seek advice from your healthcare provider before subscribing. We do not claim that fermentation renders the bread safe for gluten-related disorders, and no gluten-free version currently exists. All Proven Bread™ loaves are baked exclusively for The Sourdough School Ltd by Peter Cook’s Bread, Worcestershire, acting as our appointed contract bakery. The Sourdough School Ltd remains the Food Business Operator (FBO) responsible for the product placed on the market.

  1. Product Description The Proven™ Subscription is a 12-week programme that includes one Proven sourdough from our range, and one loaf delivered every two weeks (six loaves in total), access to an educational platform with structured video lessons, and self-assessment tools with supporting resources. Each loaf is handcrafted, freshly baked by Peter Cook’s Bread to our exact specification, and delivered according to the fixed schedule published on our website. Postage is  in addition to the subscription fee. UK only.

  2. Subscription Structure & Payment Subscriptions are billed monthly across the 3-month period. By subscribing, you commit to the full 12-week programme. Subscription fees are non-refundable once the first delivery has been dispatched.

  3. Perishable Goods: No Returns Proven Bread™ is a perishable product and is exempt from the right to cancel under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, Regulation 28(1)(c). Once a loaf has been dispatched, we cannot accept returns, offer refunds, or provide replacements unless the product is faulty, misdescribed or damaged in transit.

  4. Damages & Missing Orders If your delivery arrives damaged or unfit for consumption, you must notify us within 24 hours of delivery and complete our Returns & Incident Form. Photographic evidence clearly showing the item, outer packaging and shipping label must be provided. We will review your form and may, at our discretion, offer a replacement or a partial or full refund. We cannot take responsibility for parcels not received because the customer was unavailable to accept delivery, nor for spoilage caused by missed deliveries or incorrect addresses supplied by the customer.

  5. Delivery Terms You must ensure someone is available to receive the parcel on the scheduled delivery day. Our couriers may deliver without signature; by subscribing, you accept that delivery may be made to a safe place. We are not responsible for failed deliveries due to absence, inaccessible addresses or incorrect details provided. If your address changes, you must update us at least seven days before your next scheduled delivery. Changes submitted later may not be processed in time.

  6. Subscription Pause or Cancellation Subscription pauses are not permitted during the 12-week programme. You may cancel future renewals, but you will remain enrolled for the duration of your current subscription term.

  7. Intellectual Property All educational materials, video lessons, written content and associated resources are the intellectual property of Dr Vanessa Kimbell and The Sourdough School Ltd. No content may be reproduced, shared or distributed without explicit written permission.

  8. Data & Privacy We process your data in accordance with UK GDPR. By subscribing, you consent to the processing of your self-assessment data solely for personal learning and monitoring within the programme. We do not share your personal information with third parties.

  9. Contact For any questions or concerns, please contact: Dr Vanessa Kimbell, The Sourdough School Ltd, The Sourdough School, Pitsford, NN6 9AU, United Kingdom, or email [email protected].

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