Most of us do not have enough time to prepare tasty and healthy food, however, everyone wants to eat well. How do you solve this puzzle? Your kitchen design and your habits can be crucial for this answer.
In our busy life, there are so many things we need to pay attention to: work, family, daily duties, that there is absolutely no time left for preparing healthy meals. But don’t despair! We’ve prepared awesome kitchen design tips for you to make your life easier!
We hope our tips will help you turn the kitchen into one of your favourite places in the house, so you will look forward to the time you spend in the kitchen trying your new recipes. Whether you’re a beginner, hobbyist, or the next Jamie Oliver, everyone can make your healthy food preparation process easier by putting our tips into practice.
1. Grow greens right in the kitchen
A great tip that will save you tons of time and help you prepare healthy food is to grow fresh herbs right in the kitchen. Herbs are very healthy and can even be used as a medicine. And they’re actually very easy to grow and care for. Choose herbs and greens that are specific to your area to make the task easier.
Many herbs can be grown in small pots, so you can easily grow them in your kitchen as long as there is plenty of natural light. Choose some interesting pots or planters that match the colours and patterns in your kitchen.
A small green garden like this will not only make cooking easier and healthier, but it will also brighten up your kitchen.
2. Make your fruit composition central to your kitchen
A healthy lifestyle is actually a habit that needs to be worked on and developed. You need to set yourself and your family to eat healthy. You can start small.
For example, a big beautiful fruit bowl can look tempting, right? Try to create a healthy composition of fruits or nuts, and put them in the very centre of a kitchen. Thus, the fruit will attract your attention, and during the next snack your hands will most likely reach for this vase, and not for the harmful snack.
3. Organise storage space for household appliances
Do not skimp on household appliances, because they can be of great help in everyday life. In today’s world, there are many great healthy eating tools out there that will make your life easier. Healthy nutrition includes avoiding store-bought convenience foods. Considering this, it is recommended to purchase a multicooker and put it in a prominent place. Invest in some of the appliances, like a good quality juicer and blender, for example. In addition, there may be a need for a dryer for vegetables and fruits, which will allow you to cook different supplies. A compact freezer will not be superfluous, where you can store healthy food. In general, you will need anything to help you prepare healthy food.
Then, arrange storage space for your new electrical appliances for a healthy diet. Remember, the better your kitchen is organised, the easier it will be to prepare delicious and healthy food.
4. Hide unhealthy food away in the closet
It is very important to keep your grocery pantry tidy and also to hide unhealthy food away. This will help you live a healthy life.
Make access to healthy food more convenient, and hide away not-so-healthy foods (which you still cannot do without) and restrict access to them. Over time, it will become a habit to prefer the useful to the unhelpful, but at the initial stage, these very habits need to be cultivated. So don’t tempt yourself by placing your favourite snacks in a prominent place, but rather draw your attention to healthy foods by placing them in the foreground.
5. Check your portion sizes
Many of us are prone to overeating. This does not always lead to excess weight, but it can be fraught with the development of other health problems, such as indigestion or high blood pressure, for example. Nutritionists measure portions with all kinds of kitchen scales and small plates.
The less we eat, the less unhealthy food enters our body. Even healthy foods should be consumed in moderation.
6. Make a collection of healthy recipes
You should always save and accumulate recipes for healthy dishes, especially your favourite ones, and lay them out next to the cooking area. Convenient and beautiful book holders or a sticker board will help with this.
7. The right refrigerator
The fresher the food, the more vitamins and minerals you will get. For this purpose, refrigerators have invented special “freshness zones”: compartments where the temperature is maintained slightly above zero (from 0 to +3 °C, to be exact), and humidity is manually adjusted depending on the products in the box.
The quality of the lighting inside the refrigerator is the last thing we think about when buying. And in vain. There is a difference: one light bulb somewhere above the top shelf or LED lighting at the end of each shelf. Thanks to this arrangement, food does not block the light even in a full refrigerator. Since the electrical contacts are located on the sides, the shelves can be rearranged (along with the lighting) to any level. Moreover, such illumination gains brightness gradually – so that the light does not “hit the eyes” when opening the refrigerator in the dark.
And if you already have a great refrigerator that you don’t want to change, make sure that it works as good as the new one. And if there is some kind of malfunction make sure to find good fridge repairs professionals and fix it as soon as possible.
8. Choose the right kitchen colour
Choosing the perfect colour for your kitchen is actually a very difficult task. We are used to thinking that warm colours – yellow, orange, red – stimulate appetite. While cold colours – blue, white, green – on the contrary, do not make you want to eat again. However, when it came to testing this theory in practice, everything turned out to be exactly the opposite! It’s simple: in light and cold spaces, people want to treat themselves to something hot much more than in a bright, invigorating environment.
But this does not mean at all that now everyone needs to give up green and blue in the kitchen. Bright, saturated shades of blue, green, yellow, red, as well as brown and earthy grey tones – all of them work well to raise the mood, and accordingly – to reduce the desire to eat more than the body needs. At the same time, it is really better to refuse the abundance of white and various cream shades in the kitchen.
9. Remove the rest area from the kitchen
This rule goes against the latest trends in kitchen design. For many of us, the kitchen today is the centre of the house, where there is a children’s corner where the child can do homework, a TV set to keep track of the latest news, and a place for a small company to get together. However, the more time you spend in the kitchen, especially when watching TV, the more likely it becomes that sooner or later you will have a snack, although you will not really want to eat. Let your kitchen be only for cooking and eating, and it is better to organise the recreation area away from it!
10. Choose the right cookware size
Most plates are 28-30 cm in diameter. Since we subconsciously try to fill our plates and usually eat about 90% of what we put in them, it is natural that the size of the plates can affect the amount of calories consumed. Even a small difference can have a significant impact, for example, a plate with a diameter of 23-25 cm will allow you to eat significantly less. But be careful: experiments have shown that abruptly switching to plates less than 23 cm in size can cause feelings of self-deception and the desire to return for another serving. Scientists estimate that people eat 17% more on average when using large serving dishes.
Other helpful tips for serving food:
according to the results of experiments, red dishes make you eat less;
use a small spoon, and you will consume 14% fewer calories;
use lower and narrower glasses when serving sugary drinks and sodas;
Put food on plates before you sit down: Experiments have found that people consume 19% less food when it is on the stove or a separate table, and not under their nose ;
Before putting food in the refrigerator, wrap the most high-calorie foods in aluminum foil, and the healthiest ones in transparent plastic wrap.
Conclusion
It is very important that we take care of how we eat and what kind of life we lead. As you can see, the design of the kitchen can help us on our way to a healthy life and a proper diet. We hope that these tips will help you and that you and your family will be happy and healthy in the new kitchen.
