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.
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Monthly Lifestyle Medicine Themes

You bake the recipes that are on topic.  It’s a dynamic way to learn.

We don’t teach a traditional course.  Instead we teach on topic. This allows anyone to join at any level of baking. It’s dynamic, seasonal, topical, in the moment and interactive. We combine the Lifestyle Medicine topics with the baking, and often its about getting involved with whatever cool stuff we are doing at that moment.

Your tasks, if you choose to do them, are linked to the month and the theme.

How many hours does membership take up?

We estimate about 3-4 hours week.  There are some weeks that are a little more and some a little less, it also depends on how engaged you are with the topic and what stage of learning you are at.

Syllabus for Baking as Lifestyle Medicine

Join The Club

Total Time: 266 hours and 50 minutes

WhenLessonLesson TypeTime (mins)What you will learn
1January How fermentation makes bread more nutritiousTopic1400

How to eat healthy bread. Information on how fermentation makes bread more nutritious & how to be positive about health as a habit. We also cover bread and weight management this month.

2February Bread & GutsTopic1440

Bread & Guts - The Gut Microbiome.

This is the month we talk about the gut and how it functions in relation to bread. We concentrate on sharing knowledge about how bread can be a prebiotic, and how to incorporate bread with probiotics.  The recipes are dynamic and get you learning about symbiotic eating.  We'll look at flour and fibre and how similar your starter microbes behave to those in your gut.  I love this month.

3March What kind of bread you eat impacts your healthBackground Knowledge1350

Could bread done right save your life?

This month we'll look at flour, fibre, flavour, and open crumb wholegrain sourdough. We share how bread can be a way to increase fibre and the role of fibre. We'll talk FODMAPS, and we'll look at a programme that allows you to eat bread with more fibre that is easier to digest.

We particularly discuss bread & bowel cancer this month  – the 4th biggest killer in the UK.

4April Understanding Fermentation Topic1160

Understanding how fermentation works

It impacts everything from flavour to crumb structure, to the bioavailability of the nutrients in the bread.

Fermentation raises your dough, the CO2 produced by the wild yeast is one of the major factors to getting an open crumb structure, and the lactic acid bacteria help to break down flour.  Fermentation transforms bread.  This is the chance not just to bake sourdough but to actually understand it.

We take a closer look at IBS impacting over 20% of the population.

5May Going against the (processed) grainTopic1280

A deep dive into grains

We take a closer look at specific grains and flour, the importance of polyphenols and flavonoids, and how we eat bread.

We talk about understanding the agro-economics of bread and empowerment. We'll explore grains, flavour, nutrition, and get you trying different flour.

6June Pizza for good times & to support mental health Topic1260

Pizza month - it is summer and we emphasise the philosophy of lifestyle in our 7 core principles.  Community, sharing, the psychology of celebration, sharing bread and pizza.  Including ‘lifestyle’ of how bread is beneficial to your health.

7July Not all baking is bread - Sweet baking: the science of polyphenols, your gut health & your brainBackground Knowledge1460

Sweet sourdough baking - think cakes, pastries, brioche and bakes and muffins, scones and jams and vinegars and preserves, polyphenols, berries and how to eat sweet sourdough. The majority of our recipes include more fibre and diversity and less sugar. Most of the un-refined sugars we do use are also reduced during the fermentation process.

8August Intimate with sourdough startersTopic1400

Sourdough starters – getting to know the farmers, your flour and connecting to the environment.  This is our Botanical Blend flour month - a flour power movement to increase diversity in your everyday baking and increase the flavour profile.

And we're talking gathering, diversity, baking your own blends, and getting technical about it.

We'll be talking about routines and how controlling flavour is way easier when you understand your starter. We'll be looking at how to get a starter going and why each starter is different.

9September Why & how sourdough? Topic1400

Sourdough September – welcome to the world of sourdough. We look at why sourdough is key to Baking as Lifestyle Medicine (BALM) and we look at every step of the process - back to basics, every step is looked at this month including how to refresh, how to shape, stretch and fold, and conversations about the microbes in sourdough.

10October Bread as therapy & how BALM is Nutritional Psychiatry Topic1400

Our daily bread should help, not harm, health.

This is the month we look at Mental Health awareness.  We'll be chatting about how bread helps with mental health, both the nutritional value, and the comfort and joy of baking, especially when it comes to specific demographics.

Breaking bread breaks barriers. How to work with the BALM techniques with teenagers, especially given the challenges of technology and the inevitable challenges faced by parents when teenagers pull away.

We'll talk mens health, and how BALM empowers men to get creative, the way men can morph into food activists, rocking out the most amazing bread, and why the San Fransisco style bread is so loved by men.

Topics on mental health cover women, and how the 10 Minute loaf can help with stress and managing a budget, busy family life and the pressures of surviving day to day. We'll also talk about baking and working with the older generation and mental health.

It is about the way that we need to connect to the process. Much of the topic this month is nutritional psychiatry and it is also the month I get excited about all thing’s chocolate. Yes chocolate - starter, leaven and loaf. we even do a chocolate cultured butter...

 

11November How your bread helps you to be in control of how you feelTopic1420

This is about understanding how bread impacts your blood surge.  We're talking about the bread that you buy in the supermarkets, and how the way that you bake, eat and share bread can help you control the way you feel, inflammation and your weight.

This month is also National Diabetes Week: controlling blood sugar and mood - how this impacts mental health and hormones.

November is also Alzheimer's Awareness Month we'll be looking at the relationship between bread and the way we eat our bread as preventative health.

12December Bread and the art of giving and not giving inTopic1040

Oh the pressure is on.  Be happy it is the festive season.  We look at bread and the art of giving – why bread is the humblest and yet most generous gift.

Including festive eating that still nourishes you.  It's about not giving in this month.  Not to the gluttony, or to the commercial pressure to spend spend spend. We'll show you how to give differently. It's starts with asking yourself about your own values and what actually matters to you. BALM empowerment is about recognising how you can centre your celebrations with purpose, passion and activism so you feel well in yourself and share more than money can buy.

 

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.

⏰ 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 👆

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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 👆

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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
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