The Sourdough School

PIONEERING A NEW APPROACH TO BAKING AS LIFESTYLE MEDICINE

Learn to bake, teach & prescribe Baking as Lifestyle Medicine
Follow on Instagram

Soil Association
Our gardens are certified organic.
+44 (0)1604 881274
bookings@sourdough.co.uk
Follow on Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Student Login

Navigation
  • About us
    • Contact Us & FAQ
    • Attending the School In Person Information
    • General FAQ’s about The School
    • Policies & Procedures
    • Our Graduates
    • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy
    • Health & Safety, Legal Requirements & Terms
  • Courses
    • Certificate – Baking as Lifestyle Medicine.
    • 2 Year Online Diploma – train to prescribe baking as lifestyle medicine .
    • 7 day in person Retreat + Certificate in Baking as Lifestyle Medicine
    • Prescription Baking Courses
    • Course reviews
  • Resources
    • Login
    • Accommodation & Local Area
    • Legal Requirements & Terms
    • The Sourdough School Health And Safety Policy
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Equipment
    • Ingredients
  • Resources Diploma Students

What is a Bread-Making Prescription Course?

What is a prescription course?

Our prescription courses are prescribed to patients by doctors and healthcare professionals who have graduated the Diploma in Prescribing Baking as Lifestyle Medicine, and are part of The Sourdough School Systems Change Programme.

As our in-house GP and Medical Director Dr Alex Davidson explains: ‘This approach is a preventative medical approach that uses evidence-based behavioural interventions to prevent, treat and manage chronic disease.’

Lifestyle Medicine Prescription

We work with partners including doctors and healthcare practitioners, and your practitioner may recommend that you do one of our courses as part of your treatment. In our easy, affortable, interactive courses, we explore the amazing science of how baking can transform health.

Which of our courses are considered prescription courses?

The Sourdough Club Community Membership and our Prescription Courses are both social and lifestyle prescription courses.

What do you mean by a prescription?

There are two definitions of a prescription. It is a recommendation that is authoritatively put forward, and it is also an instruction written by a medical practitioner that authorises a patient to be issued with a medicine or treatment. Our prescription courses fit both of these definitions.

Preventative healthcare is an approach to health that identifies an optimal balance between the internal and external body, and develops a treatment plan based on this. This approach is about looking after your health before you get ill, rather than only thinking about it once you are already unwell.

Preventative medicine, then, is not focused on immediate disease, but on preventing disease in the first place.

Our BALM Protocol isn’t just about baking amazing bread; it offers a preventative approach to chronic diseases through a lifestyle  that helps people to restore balance, address nutrient deficiencies, heal the gut, and change the way they feel.

What to expect from a prescription bread-making course

We have had amazing advances in healthcare, but there is no pill to cure a poor diet. The best medicine is prevention via a healthy lifestyle, and our courses teach you that you can change the way you live through making sourdough bread. It’s delicious, sociable and healthy, and also incorporates functional exercise. Our approach will help you in so many ways. You may find you are able to sleep better, and that you have less anxiety and depression and more energy, as well as reducing your overall risk of chronic illness.

Can I just buy a Prescription Course?  Yes, absolutely.

Our short prescription courses are available to buy.  The way they are taught is underpinned by extensive research and an evidence-based approach. This approach to baking for health has been researched and developed by The Sourdough School and it follows the principles of the BALM Protocol.

Each course aims to share knowledge and step-by-step techniques of how to bake and eat delicious food that supports both physical and mental health, and optimally nourishes the gut microbiome. So you can bake, eat and share bread that supports health for you and the people you love.

At the Sourdough School, we have taught hundreds of people over many years, sharing with them our approach to making and eating bread. Time and time again, students have reported back changes in mood, sleeping patterns, digestion, weight management and mental health, so we researched the changes to the gut microbiome and the impact on health, and created our online prescription courses. You don’t need a doctors to tell you to eat well and prioritise your health, so you can self-prescribe by enrolling yourself on a course to improve your health and wellbeing.

How much do the courses cost?

There are a number of courses and they range in price. However, if your course has been prescribed to you by your healthcare practitioner, then that course is completely free of charge – both to the prescriber and to the patient, who will be given a code for a 100% discount for the course in question.

Why is my course free?

These courses are only free if you have been given a prescription by your healthcare provider. If this is the case, you will be given a prescription code that allows you to access your course completely free – no catches. This is called social prescribing.

These prescriptions are part of our Systems Change Programme. Upon graduating from our Diploma in Prescribing Baking as Lifestyle Medicine, our doctors and healthcare practitioners are given a practitioners’ licence. 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 can prescribe the course for you as a social prescription.

This programme enables graduates to apply their understanding of the BALM Protocol to help improve physical and mental heath in their patients. We know that when you are feeling poorly, a little compassion goes a very long way towards helping you feel better. Vanessa, the course director, often explains that compassion is catching.  The social prescription courses are not just about learning to make bread. They are about discovering a sense of purpose. Through making bread that is good for you and the people you are connected to, you will also learn about communication and kindness – as well as getting to enjoy amazing bread that fills the kitchen with delicious aromas.

Because the real meaning of bread is friendship.

Making it simple

  • The courses are delivered online.
  • There is no need for any prior knowledge of baking.
  • The breads are created by applying the principles of our BALM Protocol.
  • We have designed the courses around inexpensive and accessible ingredients.

Eligibility criteria guidance

We do understand that this lifestyle prescription has limitations, and our healthcare practitioners will need to ensure that patients to whom they give a prescription have:

  • access to a suitable device and the internet in order to be able to register online and watch the tutorials
  • access to a kitchen with an oven
  • access to simple equipment, including a bowl, a wooden spoon and a bread tin or ovenproof dish
  • a good command of the English language (the courses are currently all in English)

What if my practitioner has not given me a prescription?

We are working really hard to find ways to train more healthcare practitioners and make our prescriptions more widely available. We are not doctors, so we are not able to do the social prescribing ourselves. If you are feeling unwell or overwhelmed, it is really important that you see your GP or healthcare provider.

If your healthcare provider does not have a practitioners’ prescription, you can self-prescribe by paying for a prescription course yourself or using one of our free recipes.

What if the flour is too expensive?

Please email bookings@sourdough.co.uk and speak to us about the vouchers available to you.

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