DOES YOUR KITCHEN SUPPORT HEALTHY EATING?

Your kitchen can help you or can sabotage your healthy life plans.
How can you make it more health-friendly?
See my tips below.





It is matter how you keep and organise your kitchen. It matters what things are easily available, how attractive is the environment, how quickly and easily can you access to healthy food and ingredients or how quickly can you prepare a meal instead of ordering take away.

These little steps can help you to keep you on the right track and your kitchen will support your healthy life.

Keep drinking water always easily available

We all are prone to forget about our fluid intake and very often ignore the obvious first signs of thirst.
More about signs of dehydration and about the importance of fluid intake: here
Keep plain drinking water available and visible all the time for everyone in the family. This sounds obvious, but can your small children have a drink without your help? It is a good idea to keep a sip cup or a drinking bottle filled with water (read more about fizzy drinks here)on a surface on their level what they can see and reach any time without help.
A jug of water on the worktop or on the table can remind you to drink from time to time. You can even measure  your daily fluid quantity in a jug or bottle so you can track your fluid intake.

Keep a healthy pantry

If you do not have one, then create a pantry urgently as this is key if you want to sustainable healthy diet. Save a trip for every day to the shop and stock up on nutritious ingredients.

Must-have items: tinned tomatoes, passata, tinned beans, tinned chickpeas, tinned fish (like tuna, salmon, sardines and anchovies), red lentil, good quality tomato-based pasta sauce, jar of grilled peppers or sun-dried tomatoes, olives, brown rice, quinoa, wholemeal flour, plain flour, corn flour, porridge oats, semolina, different shape pasta, dried fruits, nuts and seeds.

Let your freezer work for you

The freezer is your friend, can help you to save time and money. Especially if you fill it with healthy ingredients and not just frozen pizza, fish fingers and ice cream are sitting in it. Frozen vegetables / vegetable mixes, frozen raw fish / seafood, meat, Quorn, frozen fruits can support your time-saving cooking. And use your freezer to save leftovers - but do not forget them! Keep a record what is in your freezer or check it's content regularly. Best to do it weekly when you are planning the menu ahead.

Make kitchen tools handy and organised

If you do not like cooking because you feel too time-consuming and tiring - it worth to re-think your kitchen organisation.  Do not waste time looking for pans and tools and/or running around in your kitchen.  A well-organised kitchen where you know where to find certain things can give you time and inspiration. Re-organising a kitchen can be challenging, but there are basic rules: cupboards closer to the dining room / dining are should be filled with plates and cutlery; cupboards around your working area and hob should be filled with pans, tins and ingredients. Between the two everything what needed at serving can take place: bowls, trays, kitchen foil etc. Keep handy everything what you use often, for instance, salt, pepper and wooden spoons.

Do not display unhealthy snack

I would say do not keep unhealthy snack at home at all - but I know it is not lifelike. My partner loves all my dishes what I put on the table - but sometimes he wants some chocolate or crisp... So my advice to assign a smaller cupboard for these things (out of reach of children) and put everything there. This way you are not facing with temptation whenever you open up a cupboard, plus by the size of the cupboard, the amount of this kind of snack is limited.
Putting crisp, sweets, chocolate or biscuit on display is the worst. It puts your strength to the proof in every single minute, - and believe me - sooner or later they win. Hide them somewhere and forget about them. Instead, display fresh fruit.

Display fresh fruit

A nice bowl full of fresh fruit is not just decorative but appetising too. Fruit is an obvious choice for a snack between meals, make it easily available for the whole family. And there is the pressure not to let them go wrong. Try to buy a different kind of fruit selection every week, otherwise, the fruit bowl can loose its magic.

Keep worktops clean and tidy

If you have to start cooking with tidying up the worktops and washing up it is more likely that you will not be very enthusiastic about your cooking. Make a habit cleaning up often and train your family members to put their dirty dishes/glasses directly into the sink or dishwasher. It is a huge help for you, and your kitchen is always ready for culinary adventures.