Location: United Kingdom
Profession: Home Baker
Social Profiles
About
I love cutting off the end crust from a freshly baked loaf and eating with butter or cultured butter. Next would be a slice of freshly baked bread with local honey or home made jam.
I Tend to have a slice of toast in the afternoon with honey, or jam, or marmite. If we have parts of a loaf left when I bak the next batch, I cut up the ends and put them in our Nutri-bullet to process. I then freeze the breadcrumbs and use them when I make chicken gojouns mixed with home made pesto, or lemon and parmesan.
My Work
I am based in Bath, UK and like many people I started on my sourdough journey during lockdown, inspired by instagram. I have always loved to cook and use what was around me, the approach of making sourdough bread with simply flour, water, and a little salt from a starter that was made from yeasts and bacteria fascinated.
I bake from home for my family (including our Jack Russell Archie using the sourdough discards as per Vanessa's dog biscuit recipe) but offer a loaf or some halves to neighbours and friends.
Passionate about Baking as Lifestyle Medicine
I have become really fascinated with the science of sourdough baking, the connection to nature, soil and grains, and how this supports the gut microbiome for both physical and mental well-being. My own research and practice of sourdough baking continues to deepen my curiosity across a number of different disciplines including science, nutrition, mindfulness, agriculture, economics, and social policy. It has made me realise that using organic, natural ingredients directly benefits our physical and mental health but more importantly the diversity of ingredients, and how each ingredient has a specific and symbiotic relationship with each other and us as humans. This can interconnectedness and symbiosis can be extrapolated at macro level across our community and society and our relationship with nature.
My Community
See above but in my current community of tech workers, how baking can help calm and bring purpose to individuals, to help them with a sense of achievement by creating nourishing and wholesome food that has a direct impact on their mental and physical health. To make them more engages in a natural process that can augment the synthetic commercialisation of technology.
How I use BALM Protocol
My current thinking is in many ways:
* Sharing knowledge of making sourdough bread and the impact it has on our health through group teaching
* Including sourdough baking as part of corporate away days and team building exercises to show the importance of interconnectedness, good quality ingredients, appreciating the time, energy and focus during the process to create nourishing and wholesome outcomes that benefit the consumer
* Possibly going in to schools to educate our children on baking as a lifestyle
