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 do I need to do to graduate?

Rising to the Challenge  – you will need to create a BALM recipe

Our graduation process is a radical departure from traditional learning and assessment methods, placing a strong emphasis on practical application, sharing, community, and continuous learning.

It has been designed to be a learning experience for individual students but also creates a ripple effect of knowledge and healthy practices within the wider community. We ask you to create and share a BALM recipe which on graduation is published on your graduation page.

. In most traditional educational settings, the knowledge acquired is tested via exams, after which the exam paper is essentially discarded. The student proves their understanding but doesn’t contribute anything tangible or reusable to the learning community. By contrast, creating and sharing a recipe is a unique way of demonstrating one’s learning while also contributing to the community.

What is important is that this recipe can be used, enjoyed, and learned from by others, fostering a more communal and contributory spirit of learning.

The recipe it requires real life application of the principles of BALM, and students must demonstrate they can take the principles they’ve learned and create something practical and useful. This encourages a deeper level of understanding and engagement with the material

 

 

 

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