How To Organize & Optimize Your Kitchen For Raw Foods
– by Lilach Mutzafi
I have a very small kitchen. No, really, it’s TINY! I hardly have room for all the appliances I want, and very little cabinet space. In addition, I’m the only raw-foodist in a family of 4, so we still need space for pots, pans and baking tins for my “cooked” hubby and kids…
There is an advantage in a tiny kitchen, though. There is no room for clutter! If the drying dishes pile up or the organic waste compost bowl overflows – I have no room to prepare meals, and if we leave mail or toys on the kitchen table – we have no room to eat! So the lack of space and the need to keep things tidy leads to organization and efficiency being the name of the game in my kitchen!
How do I do it? Here are my top 3 tips!
1. Map Out Your Kitchen & Find the Links
I find this permaculture design principal for creating sustainable productive systems vital, especially in having a tiny kitchen like mine where you keep bumping into things if they are not in place. The idea is to map out key elements in your kitchen, find links between them, and then locate them accordingly.
For example, to prepare a green smoothie I need: my fridge, sink, blender, knife and organic waste bowl. These are my elements. As the first step in making a smoothie is taking fruit and greens out of the fridge and into the sink, the fridge and the sink are linked and so their relative location should, when possible, be such that I can move between them in a streaming motion with a minimum of interruptions on the way. This is true, of course, not just for making smoothies…
After I wash the produce and place it on the counter top, I next peel, chop and pop it in my blender. This process defines a link between the knife and the blender, so my blender station is located right above the cutlery drawer so the knife is ready at hand and the motion is again streaming and quick. Finally, I want my organic waste compost bowl at arms’ reach, so I don’t have to carry the pile of peels, seeds and stems across the kitchen.
See the idea? Similarly, you might want the salad bowls close to the olive-oil and vinegar, the plates close to the table, the tea leaves close to the mugs, or if you’re cooking, the pots and pans hanging above the stove.
2. Allocate More Space To Frequently Used Items
Find out what’s important to you and what you use the most, and allocate space accordingly. I use my blender at least once EVERYDAY, so it has a place of honor on my very narrow counter top. I use my food-processor only once or twice a week, so it’s tucked away in the cabinet. I have an entire shelf in my fridge just for greens, and we have a whole shelf of different sorts of flour in the cabinet because my husband loves baking.
Place only what you use regularly on your counter top, and store the rest of the appliances somewhere they are easy to access. Decide on specific shelves for each type of food in your fridge and cabinets, (a separate shelf for greens/fruit/veg, one corner for grains and the other for nuts and seeds, etc.) and try not to mix between them. Allocate larger spaces for the products you use frequently or in the highest quantities. If it helps you, you can label the shelves to avoid other family members coming in with the groceries and mixing it all up.
3. Keep Your Kitchen Alive and Inspiring!
The kitchen is my favorite place in the house. I can literally spend HOURS there. I love my kitchen to be beautiful and inviting, a place that I would want to go into and prepare food, a place for my children to wander in looking for a healthy snack, and a place for us to spend some family time together. And I love my kitchen to be alive both in the sense of the family dynamics around it and in the sense that food GROWS there. I feel my kitchen is not whole if there isn’t a decorative plant, a pot of herbs, or a dish for growing sprouts around.
Grow food in your kitchen. Plants add color, flavor, scents and variety to your environment. Growing sprouts is especially fun with kids, who love to check in on the sprouts to see how they develop, and they add such great nutritional value!
Besides plants, you could hang a beautiful painting or a family photo, change the color of the walls or the cabinets, or use beautiful dishes… whatever makes YOU feel inspired and uplifted when you go into your kitchen!
For me, the kitchen is the heart of the house. Keeping it organized is not always easy, but it is definitely worth the effort.
Do you implement permaculture design principles in your kitchen? Leave a comment below and tell us about it!