Kitchen Essential

At its most basic, the kitchen is the engine room that drives the long food processing chain. This stretches from the farmlands and oceans that produce our food to the landfills, rivers, and seas that take the eventual wastes and rubbish. But the chain does not start with the food growers and processors — it starts with you. For it is what each individual consumer decides to buy that ultimately determines the produce — and the price — from the growers and the food industry. The purse is very influential and we, as consumers, have both power and responsibility for making choices. Hard on the heels of the outcry over additives and artificial colouring in processed foods, we now have mounting concern over the dangers inherent in our most basic foodstuffs: salmonella in eggs and poultry, listeria in milk and soft cheeses, hormones in meat, heavy metals in fish, pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables, and pollutants in our drinking water. We daily become more and more conscious that something is going very wrong and that something must be done, and we are willing to try alternatives as long as we are given proper information and can find the safe, clean foods.

Food has one advantage over many other consumer goods: we can produce, process, and dispose of much of it ourselves. As home producers of at least some of our food we begin to be more self-reliant and can break a link in the chain that binds us to the whole producer/consumer complex. If you don’t have a garden, you can still grow some vegetables and fruit, perhaps on a balcony or even a wide window sill. Growing, harvesting, and eating your own food can be a powerful stimulus for a change in attitudes and lifestyle. Once you start growing, or buying, food produced by healthy and conserving methods, you may want to apply the same principles when you store, prepare, cook, and eat the food, and when you clear up and dispose of the waste. The process can then become wholistic, with each stage relying on the others, and change from being one geared to wastefulness to one concerned with health and sustainability.

While you may not be willing or able to change all the kitchen functions at once, a few simple and gradual alterations should be rewarding enough for you to want to experiment further. Start, for example, by growing some fruit and vegetables. Then you might want to try your hand at making preserves, jams, and pickles, or bottling fruit and making home-made wines and beers. Herbs are easy to grow and make a wonderful difference when used fresh in your cooking. And for the health of the environment, you can compost organic waste, fit low-flow taps, avoid plastic packaging, and sort bottles, aluminium cans, and paper for recycling. Although the activities mentioned here are small in themselves, each contributes to a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle by helping to safeguard the environment. You can start anywhere, as long as you make a start — today.

Kitchen layout

Changes to your cooking and eating habits affect the design, function, and layout of the kitchen. A natural kitchen differs from the conventional type in needing more space for fresh, home-grown produce, for storage, as well as for preparation. Large, deep cupboards or, preferably, a walk-in larder or pantry provide ample space for preserved and bottled produce and for bulk supplies of dry goods. Herbs and salad crops grown on window sills need plenty of sun and good daylight. In the natural kitchen, worktop space is more generous and is designed as work centres of different heights and surfaces, with tools to suit various purposes ready to hand. Kitchenware and tools are practical rather than gimmicky, and there is less dependence on mechanical preparation.

Separate recycling bins in or adjacent to the kitchen assist presorting and assignment of waste to the compost heap. All equipment, furnishings, and materials are healthy and nontoxic, and water and energy systems are designed to be conserving. The natural kitchen is, in reality, a new expression of the older, family-style kitchen. It can be fun to adapt to a natural kitchen, even if it requires a little thought and effort at the start. Planning it involves the whole family, and the ideas may be taken up by friends and neighbours. The kitchen is a source of strength and inspiration, often the first place where people begin the changes that will transform their homes and their lifestyles.

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