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.
Follow on Instagram

Soil Association
Our gardens are certified organic.

Baking as Lifestyle Medicine for Bakers and Clinicians

+44 (0)1604 881274
bookings@sourdough.co.uk
Follow on Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Student Login

Navigation
  • About Us
    • The Team
    • Contact Us & FAQ
    • The Systems change Programme
    • General FAQ’s about The School
  • Courses
    • Sourdough Retreat + Baking Certificate
    • BALM Baking Certificate
    • BALM Clinical Diploma
    • Club Membership
    • Course reviews
  • BALM
    • BALM as Lifetyle Medicine
    • Social Prescribing BALM
    • Teaching BALM
    • BALM Educational Awards
  • Student Info
    • Course Enrolment: In-Person Pre-Booking information
    • Login
    • The School
    • Understanding Our School’s Language and Structure
    • Student Welfare
      • The Sourdough School Health And Safety Policy
      • Health & Safety, Legal Requirements & Terms
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Equipment
    • Ingredients
Two students at the sourdough school holding bread

Building relationships is built into our courses

We teach you to share the knowledge.  Being part of a movement for systems change is built in as part of your course.

Through sharing our knowledge we transform our values into systems change. The word “system” derives from the Greek “synhistanai” which means “to place together.” in becoming a student here and baking according to the Bread protocol become this change, aa student on our Diploma courses you join The Sourdough slub.  The club is where we teach your course online and where we deliver our syllabuses.  We do this so you become part of our community, and we support each other.

How do you become the change?

By sharing;  we have built in to the syllabus as your very last lesson a task for you to continue your learning by supporting and sharing your knowledge with someone that you are connected to. This is how we create change together, by sharing knowledge.

What to expect

So if you you have requested a Course Prospectus and you are thinking about enrolling on one of The Sourdough School courses to learn to make bread then there are quite literally thousands of courses that you could choose instead. It is important that you know that I don’t teach you to make bread. I teach you to understand bread. So if you are someone who just wants big holes then you in the wrong place.

I don’t think I ever set out to teach people to make bread. My mother described me once as being “defiant.” I don’t suppose she really meant it as a compliment, but making your own bread is a powerful act of defiance. So perhaps the most important thing you need to know if you are thinking about enrolling on a course is that the course is really about understanding that the food system is broke.  Just teaching you to make bread (that nourishes your gut microbiome) is not enough to make a difference.  Likewise, a Diploma or Certificate isn’t really the evidence that you have completed one of our courses.  It is the moment that something clicks, and you will find yourself wanting to be part of a movement for systems change.

How?

We invite you as our student to stay as a member of The Sourdough Club for another year and we gift a Just Bake Membership 1 year for free for you to give a young baker that you nominate as the final step in your syllabus. It is about teaching the next generation of bakers.

This means you can keep baking and learning from your course for a mother 12 months whilst supporting a young baker anywhere in the world virtually through the club and the forum – because our connection to each other is the real secret of why sourdough is good for us.

If you are going enrol then you learn that I personally speak to applicants who want to join the course.  I am not looking for baking expertise, neither am I looking for academic qualifications. I look for students who will complete the final task of the course and become part of the School.

I believe that bread that nourishes, like fresh air and clean water is a basic human right. So the Sourdough School isn’t a place, it is a movement, a political idea, and as a student you become part of a global network of bakers who are essentially food activists. I have mentored hundreds of people around the world, including GP’s, Dieticians, Surgeons, Nutritionists, Domestic bakers, Professional Bakers and every single one of them has gone on to teach and share knowledge of how to bake and eat bread that nourishes with others – now it is your turn.

https://www.sourdough.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Social-enterprise.m4a

Existing Member Login

All reasonable care is taken when writing about health aspects of bread, but the information it contains 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.

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.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Follow the link in our bio to our shop, where you can find the best artisan ingredients for your bread! 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#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)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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. 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#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 🌾
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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'!
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And naturally, we will be talking about how we can incorporate barley into our baking and our botanical blends.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
To find out more, become a student of the Sourdough Club! 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#grains #wheat #einkorn #emmer #spelt #heritagegrains #freshlymilledflour #milledflour #milling #freshlymilled #botanicalblend #fromscratch #unrefined #mockmillproud #mockmill
Follow on Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Email Sign Up

Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2023 Vanessa Kimbell
Call +44 (0)1604 881274 | Email bookings@sourdough.co.uk
Registered in England & Wales: 08412236
Website by Callia Web