Location: United States of America (USA)
Profession: Health Care Worker
Social Profiles
About
I’m not sure I have a favorite way to eat bread - I love it in just about any way you can eat it. But there is nothing like the first bite out of a fresh loaf warm with a pat of butter melting on top.
Right now, I bake for my family. At one time I baked for Farmer’s Market where I took around 60 loaves of different types of bread with me. Customers loved it an often told me that they loved to get a loaf of bread in which they knew what all the ingredients were.
My Work
My husband and I live in Blaine, Washington…the farthest point in the northwest of the US, less than a mile from the Canadian border.
I’m a wholistic nurse practitioner that believes in treating all facets of our being; mind, body, spirit, emotions. I look deep into a patient’s needs so that we can work with all of our parts and how they interact. For example, the effect nutrition has on our emotions; how gut health alters our brain, body and emotional health.
I do mostly telehealth appointments now as most of what I do is education and consulting after reviewing lab work and getting to know the patients.
Passionate about Baking as Lifestyle Medicine
I work primarily with patients who have autoimmune disease where gut and adrenal health are of primary importance.
I was taught for years that all bread (gluten) is bad for any autoimmune disease and practiced that even though it didn’t really feel completely right for me. Sometimes the rigid diet often recommended by Functional Medicine (my training) is so rigid that it causes more stress than relieving it and one of the main issues people have, in my experience, is the removal of bread.
When I found the Sourdough School it was like opening a window and letting the fresh air rush into a stale room. This is what I have been waiting for! An answer to how bread can actually help us.
I believe that baking bread can be a spiritual and emotional experience as well as a physical one. There are even studies to back this up. We, as humans, have a deep connection with bread and baking it that goes back most of our history. I want to tap more deeply into this for myself and for my patients.
Personally, I would like to experience BALM for myself. I have never baked sourdough - for whatever reason I’ve been intimidated by it - yet recommend it to my patients. I am SO excited to learn how to make this part of my health journey as well as helping my patients with it as well.
My Community
Our community is a small community, but close to Bellingham which is a minor city in Washington. This area is HUGE for alternative health modalities that are effective and fun. There is no one, that I know of, teaching bread making in general, let alone as a lifestyle medicine.
This area loves their bakeries and demands high quality, but speaking to how it can actually improve your health and your life does not come up much, in my experience,
I would love to bring BALM to my community as well as my patients. There is an opportunity to lead courses at the community education center and I would love to bring this to them.
How I use BALM Protocol
As stated above, I’ll shout it from the rooftops!
More directly, I want to be able to teach the BALM method to my patients after I have finished the program and to our community.
I would also like to document my journey as it happens, but then do online education through a website and blog as well as some of the health podcasts I follow. I really believe this needs to be talked about much more.
