The Sourdough Club

Prescribing Baking as Lifestyle Medicine

Change your bread, change your life. Discover how sourdough helps make bread more nutritious and why it is easier to digest, as you learn to bake eat and share extraordinary bread to support both mental and physical health.
Follow on Instagram

  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp
The Sourdough Schhol

Member Login

Navigation
  • Home
  • About
    • The Team
    • The Sourdough School
    • The 6 pillars of lifestyle Medicine
    • Prove it – The Case Studies
    • Contact Us
    • Latest Reviews
    • Terms and Conditions
      • Competitions / Prize draw terms and Conditions
  • Memberships
    • Club Membership Explained
    • GP Referral Membership
    • 30 Seriously great things you get with membership
    • Membership options
    • Kit, Voucher & Course
  • Activism
    • Train as a prescriber
    • Qualify to teach
    • Help to create alternative food networks
  • Members
    • Welcome & Key Navigation
    • This Weeks Focus
    • Live Learning Sessions
    • Student Resources
    • Club Customer Services
    • Log in
    • Sourdough Club Magazine
  • Shop
    • Sourdough Books
    • Sourdough Baking Equipment
    • Sourdough Ingredients
    • Gift Vouchers

What is a Bread-making Prescription Membership?

What is a prescription Membership?

A prescription membership is prescribed to patients by doctors and healthcare professionals who have graduated from The Sourdough School

As our in-house GP and Medical Director Dr Alex Davidson explains: ‘This 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 socially prescribe membership and suggest that learning to bake according to lifestyle medicine principles could be a way to improve the way you feel. In our easy, affordable, interactive courses, we explore the amazing science of how baking can transform health.

Which memberships are considered prescription courses?

The Sourdough Club Membership runs according to the six pillars of Lifestyle Medicine, and our approach is specifically created to focus on baking optimally for heath or social issues, by having fun, and baking, eating and sharing nourishing bread.

You can expect to make amazing, simple, delicious bakes that you can eat and share with the people you love. 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 membership?

Yes, absolutely. Our memberships are available for anyone to buy.  We call this a self-referral membership.

Does it work?

Yes, it does. You can see an overview of our Case Study Library here. 

At The Sourdough School, (where we film and managed the website), 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 followed our lifestyle-medicine-based approach to baking and reported back changes in mood, sleeping patterns, digestion, weight management and mental health. So, we researched these changes to the gut microbiome and measured the impact on health through dietary intervention studies. The results were so amazing that  that we decided we had to find a way to share this approach with healthcare professionals, and so we created our prescription-level memberships.

You don’t need a doctor 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.

Lifestyle medicine Prescription
Lifestyle Medicine social prescriptions

How much do the courses cost?

Prescription Memberships range in price. However, if your course has been prescribed to you by your healthcare practitioner, then your prescriber will have given you a voucher code. This significant discount should make the membership affordable.

How much does it cost to join?

As a social enterprise, we give our practitioners vouchers, and your practitioner is able to invite you with a discount allowing you to join The Club for £9.99. Your monthly subscription is £1.99.

These social prescriptions are part of our Systems Change Programme. If your doctor or healthcare practitioner is one of  our Sourdough School graduates, they will have been given a practitioners’ licence. If they feel that this bread-making prescription course is something that will improve your health, then they can prescribe the membership voucher for you as a social prescription.

Our programme enables graduates to apply their understanding of the BALM Protocol and to identify which membership will suit which patient and help improve their physical and mental health 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 memberships 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 Lifestyle Medicine.
  • 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 joining as a member. Alternatively, if life is financially challenging, then please check out one of our free recipes.

What if I am struggling to afford the flour?

We have a small discretionary fund to help members who find themselves needing a hand.  Please email bookings@sourdough.co.uk and speak to us about the flour and equipment vouchers that are available to you.

⏰ LAST CHANCE TO BUY ONE, GIFT ONE ON 12 MONTH S ⏰ LAST CHANCE TO BUY ONE, GIFT ONE ON 12 MONTH SOURDOUGH CLUB MEMBERSHIPS ⏰

The Sourdough Club in an online learning platform, with hundreds of baking tutorials tips, techniques, recipes and inspiration to learn to bake nutritious sourdough. Join us for weekly live Q&A sessions with @vanessakimbell, get support from our team of in-house health professionals and chat with other bakers on our lively forum.

We know what you're thinking...
Yawn yawn. Learning online is boring. Our approach is different – and we totally reimagined and redesigned online learning to give you the opportunity to be part of a movement in social justice.

Until the end of the 31st Jan 2023, you can buy two 12 month Club memberships for the price of one! Follow the link in the bio to learn more 👆

#sourdough #sourdoughbread #sourdoughstarter #baking #bakingwithlove #isolation #learntobake #bakebread #learnsourdough #sourdoughschool #sourdoughclub #sourdoughbread #sourdough #immuneboosting #specialoffer #digestivehealth #lookafteryourself #comingtogether #bakingwithfriends
SOURDOUGH PASTA, MADE WITH BOTANICAL BLEND FLOUR 🍝

Our master pasta recipe is based on an Italian recipe for pasta fresca all’uovo. It’s a great way to use up sourdough starter that would otherwise be discarded during refreshment.

You can use any of our Botanical Blends to make this pasta, which means it's a good recipe for people who are just starting to increase the levels of fibre in their diet. With the Botanical blend alone, the diversity score is at about 14 before you’ve added any other ingredients, so it really is a great way of increasing both fibre and diversity.

You'll find that mixing and kneading the pasta dough is a great workout for your hands, and quite therapeutic, too, because you have to concentrate on what you are doing and be mindful. You really can’t answer the phone when you’re in the middle of making pasta.

Plus, we worked out that if you use a supermarket wholemeal flour in place of the Botanical blend, making this pasta will cost about 25p per serving, so it's an ideal recipe for anyone who wants to eat well on a budget.

This is just one of our master recipes for Sourdough Club members, follow the link in the bio to learn more about joining the Club today 👆

#sourdoughpasta #guthealth #healyourgut #healthygut #guthealing #guthealthmatters #letfoodbethymedicine #foodasmedicine #gutbrainconnection #nutrientdense #micronutrients #digestivehealth #nutritionfacts #microbiome #breadandguts #zoe #bluepoo #bluepoochallenge
🥐 SOURDOUGH'S NOT JUST FOR BREAD 🥐 If you'r 🥐 SOURDOUGH'S NOT JUST FOR BREAD 🥐

If you're masted the sourdough boule, and you're looking for your next baking challenge, sourdough croissants might be the answer. It is not easy to make croissants, especially sourdough ones. That said, they are utterly delicious and well worth mastering.

We have a lovely little recipe on the Sourdough Club from baking legend  @emsbread including a video class in how to shape these tricky little pastries.

Follow the link in the bio to learn more about The Sourdough Club 👆

#sweetsourdough #sourdough #sourdoughbread #realbread #sourdoughcakes #sourdoughbakes #sourdoughboule #naturallyleavened #breadbosses #breadmaking #realbread #livefreeandbake #dailybread #breadgang #breadbook #breadrecipes #sourdoughrecipes #sweetbread #guthealth #gutmicrobiome #guthealth #mentalhealth #breadandguts #digestion #micronutrients #gutbrainconnection
TRY MAKING A CHOCOLATE LEAVEN FOR HEALTH BENEFITS TRY MAKING A CHOCOLATE LEAVEN FOR HEALTH BENEFITS & AMAZING FLAVOURS

A chocolate leaven is ideal if you want to make a sweet ambient bread, especially the richer spiced breads in the dark winter months. Even if you use the leaven and make a wholegrain ambient, the small amount of cocoa in the leaven lends a deep malty chocolate base that gives you a perfume rather than a flavour.

A great way to get this chocolatey party started is by buying our Chocolate Sourdough Starter Kit, follow the link in the bio to learn more 👆

#sweetsourdough #sourdoughcakes #sourdoughbaking #sweetbakes #sourdoughcake #sweetsourdoughbread #chocolatesourdough #chocolatestarter
🍞 WIN A COPY OF THE PERFECT LOAF 🍞 The Perf 🍞 WIN A COPY OF THE PERFECT LOAF 🍞

The Perfect Loaf was one of our absolute favouite books from last year! It's a dynamic, authoritative sourdough baking bible for those looking to build confidence in the craft with a wide range of foolproof recipes, from pan loaves to pizza to doughnuts, by the beloved blogger and resident bread baker at Food52 @maurizio

We are delighted to have 2 copies to give away! One for the UK and one for the USA and Canada!

To enter the giveaway, all your have to do is:
👉 Follow @maurizio @sourdoughclub @sourdoughschool @vanessakimbell
👉 Let us know in the comments below if you are from the UK, USA or Canada 

Winners will be picked on 03/02/23 date. PLEASE NOTE: this giveaway is for USA, CANADA & UK only due to shipping.
Find the full terms and conditions on our website

#competition #giveaway #win #sourdough #sourdoughgiveaway #sourdoughbaker #contest #prize #giveawaycontest #giveawayalert #giveawaytime
Follow on Instagram
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Get the Sourdough Club Magazine

Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2023 Vanessa Kimbell
Call +44 (0)1604 881274 | Email info@thesourdoughclub.com
Registered in England & Wales: 11513581
Website by Callia Web