An Invitation to Consider Mental Health & Baking
Mental health and bread may seem like an unlikely pair at first glance. The two topics do not often come up together in conversation. Dismissing them as unrelated, however, would be a missed opportunity to consider valuable insights into our mental and physical well-being. Bread, and more widely grains, and the way we relate to them, offer a chance to look at our mental health on both the individual and the larger community level.
June 18th, 2024
By Holly Radice (CGC Community Member)
An Invitation to Consider Mental Health in Baking
An Invitation to Consider Mental Health in Baking
Mental health and bread may seem like an unlikely pair at first glance. The two topics do not often come up together in conversation. Dismissing them as unrelated, however, would be a missed opportunity to consider valuable insights into our mental and physical well-being. Bread, and more widely grains, and the way we relate to them, offer a chance to look at our mental health on both the individual and the larger community level.
I am a somatic mental health therapist and self described bread enthusiast. When I embarked on my home baking journey almost a decade ago, I would never have connected mental health with what I was doing. If anything, the way I was baking seemed a bit detrimental to my own stability. The first time I tried to make sourdough, I all but threw my carefully mixed dough across the room in frustration. The only thing keeping me from launching it at the wall was likely that it had committed to sticking to every inch of my hands.
Despite my early mishaps, I tried again and again. I slowed down (something not in my nature) and began to consider the process of baking and let myself become a student. I let myself sink into the sense of calm that entered my body while folding my dough. The spark of joy in scoring a new pattern. The disappointment in an under proofed loaf, but with it, curiosity in how to adjust for the next batch. And then there’s the eating.
The draw to sourdough baking during the initial days of the pandemic was not just a random fad or tiktok trend. I, and millions of others, discovered the positive mental health impacts of baking during a time when most of us needed support. We learned how mixing and folding dough can bring us into a meditative state, something similar to meditation or a yoga class. We learned how the routine of feeding our starters could create a sense of discipline and internal safety. And most importantly, we learned how baking can connect us to our neighbors, to our community.
Community in Baking
Community is a critical element for mental well-being. Connection with others is a core human need, and supports a sense of belonging and purpose. Isolation is strongly correlated with higher levels of depression and anxiety. The natural antidote, social support, is widely considered a leading factor in positive health outcomes. Home bakers often find community in sharing samples with neighbors or in trading tips with other bakers. Professional bakers too have an important connection with a broader community.
Rebel Bread, founded by Zach Martinucci, is a small batch, artisanal bakery, offering bread, pastries, and baking classes. Rebel’s products are incredible, but a huge part of what makes them special is the way they interact with the community. In 2021, Zach and his leadership team established a set of core values to guide the way they show up with each other and with the public. These values put an emphasis on respecting and supporting each other, celebrating their wins and placing importance on both learning and sharing this knowledge with team members and customers.
While core values such as these are deeply important to the mental health of employees, well-being in a community goes much deeper. The products bakers choose to use, offers space to consider mental health further. Using and consuming local grains has the benefit of supporting local economies, aiding our environment, deepening relationships, and offering higher nutritional value. All factors promote mental health by engendering a sense of care and connection to community.
Despite these benefits, running a successful bakery is challenging as it is. Running a successful bakery while choosing to focus on using local grains seemed impossible, according to Zach. Yet, Rebel is currently on track to complete its transition to 100% regional grains in their products a year after committing to the change. When I asked Zach about why it was worth the risk of changing his current business model, he shared his experience attending the Maine Grain Alliance Kneading Conference last summer. While listening to other bakers and owners discuss the use of local grains, Zach heard familiar fears about cost and sustainability. However, the conference transformed the way Zach thought about local grains.
“Being there, I felt the importance,” Zach recalled. “It tastes better, creates a better product. It supports local economies and creates regenerative agriculture”.
When Zach returned, he began to work with Dry Storage, a Boulder based artisanal mill, to make a new model built around regional grains work. For Zach, it was important that this could happen without significantly raising prices. “Prices can limit who can afford it or even who wants to learn about why local grains are important”. He wants his products to be accessible for all customers and hopes this opens a door for the community to learn about the impact of using regional grains.
Addressing Challenges
While the act of baking and preparing food brings about a sense of mental well-being for many, there is no denying the challenges faced by those who bake on a professional level. The hospitality industry is filled with remarkable, driven, and creative individuals. While many find passion in their work by providing care and service to others, unique stressors of the industry can make caring for one’s own mental health difficult.
CHOW (Culinary Hospitality Outreach Wellness) is an international non-profit organization founded in Denver, with the goal of supporting food, beverage, and hospitality workers in navigating these stressors, building connections, and receiving the same care they so often extend to their customers.
“The hospitality industry is built on the system of the military brigade, every piece contributes to the larger whole” explains Jasmin Parks-Papadopoulos, Chief Growth Officer at CHOW. While this is efficient, the issue, she says, is that “we took the hierarchy model without taking the internal support systems”.
Jasmin spoke to me about the level of respect food, beverage, and hospitality workers hold for their products and their customers. Often, the system, she says, “disincentivizes self-care and is based on one’s ability to not think about themselves and their own needs”. In fact, 85% of food, beverage, and hospitality workers report feeling stressed from their jobs, according to CHOW. And the impact goes much deeper, where 65% of these same professionals suffer from depression and 53% feel they have been pushed to their breaking point.
While many in the industry agree that the system is not sustainable, financial and resourcing barriers have long created an obstacle for managers or team members that want to implement change. It can be difficult to offer something as simple as mental health check-ins when the resources for follow through just don’t exist for struggling employees.
This is exactly where CHOW steps in. Jasmin describes CHOW as “a listening organization” focusing on healing through community care. Discussion meetings are run by ExPos (experienced peers offering support) and offer a safe space to talk with others who understand the challenges they face. They use language that is familiar, like taking “temperature checks” to check in and consider the idea of service. “Service, we know” Jasmin explains and this makes “self service” a concept that is approachable. And it’s working. CHOW has close to an 80% return rate for meetings. Through offering meetings, training sessions and toolkits, they are actually creating the systems for follow through.
After talking with Jasmin and Zach, I began to consider the connections between farmers, the land, bakers, and consumers. All are a part of our community’s complex ecosystem, and like any ecosystem, it is important to tend to each component in order for all to thrive. If one part is suffering, the whole will suffer as well. If the bakers behind the bread that nourish our communities are not able to care for themselves to the same degree they do for their customers, then the whole system is not fully thriving. While baking can be a catalyst for community engagement and positive change, it is vital to take into account the energy that food and hospitality workers pour into making this happen.
To ensure the flourishing of the entire ecosystem, it is vital to support the high standard of craft and work ethic of food businesses and farmers through the types of systems that organizations, like CHOW, provide. And as individuals, we can consider the impact of something like exchanging smiles with the person working the counter at our local bakery or asking about where their flour comes from. In these actions, we have the power as bakers, as consumers, and as organizers, to create a healthy ecosystem where all can thrive. Truly thriving, means stepping into the conversation about mental health.