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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What can a patient expect if I prescribe BALM?

Firstly, your patient can expect a warm welcome. We have had remarkable advances in healthcare, but no pill can cure a poor diet, loneliness or some of life’s challenges.  So we are learning that the best medicine is prevention via a healthy lifestyle, and our memberships inspire and help members to change how they live by making sourdough bread.

It’s a delicious, sociable, healthy learning space to discover how to balance blood sugar, and incorporates all aspects of lifestyle medicine, including functional exercise, into the way people approach bread.

Changing their relationship with themselves through baking

Our approach will help your patient in so many ways. From social interaction to better gut transit, patients join an international community, and they get a sense of achievement, purpose, and fun. Lifestyle changes impact daily things like blood sugar balance means that your patient may start to sleep better, which might mean that they have less anxiety and depression and more energy, as well as reducing your overall risk of chronic illness. It’s about slowing down and connecting and learning something that is inexpensive and achievable and has a positive impact on mental health.  It also connects patients to feeding people and being creative and gives them something to share and talk about. We can tell you all the amazing things about being a club member but below is a member of The Sourdough Club – chatting about The Club and BALM and the impact on her well-being.

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