Perhaps you’ve been wanting a kitchen remodel or some small spruce-up projects, but you also want those changes to make the kitchen more user-friendly for healthy living. Of course healthy living means slightly different things to different people, but a few principles tend to be shared in common for a lot of different ways of approaching a healthy lifestyle: first, eating more fresh fruits and vegetables generally impacts one’s health in a good way. Second, intentionally planning one’s life around healthy foods can help you resist convenience foods that don’t make you feel as good. And Third, making food something that is worth taking time to enjoy can increase the positive connections with healthy dishes. Together, designing for these factors makes your home more appealing and inviting, potentially leading to a higher home value in the future.
Design for fresh food
Everything from a little hook to hold a bunch of bananas to a beautiful kitchen hanging basket for keeping your farmer’s market root veggies fresh are great ways to make your design reflect your desire for fresh food. While putting fruit and veggies in the crisper drawer of your fridge may work for you, it does put them out of sight, and for some of us, out of mind, which can result in spoilage and waste. Take the time to figure out the optimal way to store each of your favorite fresh foods and see if you can get a little more visibility for it: if your eye-level shelf currently has processed foods and snacks, try putting those items in a less visible spot and using that “prime real estate” for your favorite whole grains and other pantry staples that can inspire your next tasty meal.
Design for meal prep and batching
Realistically, many of us reach for convenience foods when we need to cook something fast, but meal prep and batch cooking can allow us to have something very healthy at the ready. For this, we recommend factoring a refrigerator with a large freezer or a standalone deep freezer into your kitchen design. Then, make sure there is plenty of counter space to spend a weekend afternoon making many servings of your favorite freezer-friendly healthy food - making the space easy to use during batch cooking is a great way to shape your kitchen redesign, since it’s a key way to make healthy eating also convenient and fun.
Design for savoring
While some batch cooking is a great way to make even the busiest days healthy, one of the other ways to make your kitchen fit a healthier lifestyle is to create a rich experience of community and connection. When you have space at the kitchen island for friends to sit and sip tea while you slow roast a tasty and healthy meal, you associate all those great memories with the high-quality food, leading to genuine enjoyment that doesn’t feel like the deprivation associated with dieting. We recommend any kitchen design touches that make it a pleasure to use: after all, healthy living is often deeply connected with taking the time to prepare high quality food, even if it is very simple food. Making time for it is easier when it’s also so pleasant.
Still need inspiration for your kitchen’s design choices? Talk to your real estate agent and see if there are any popular features that will improve resale value while also making your healthy lifestyle even more of a reality.
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