Ferne Kornfeld on The Importance of a Clean Kitchen for a Home Chef

A home kitchen can be a chef’s dream — or a nightmare. It all depends on the order and cleanliness of what they’re about to walk into. It doesn’t matter if one is a professional chef or a foodie; the kitchen can still be the best room in the house.

As such, it is critical to keep a kitchen clean. There are hundreds of reasons why the kitchen of all places should be the cleanest; some of them are arguably more obvious than others.

Preventing Foodborne Illness

One of the most obvious, not to mention critical, reasons to keep a kitchen clean is to prevent foodborne illnesses. Spoiled food and cross-contamination are real risks, and their threat gets more prominent the more basic cleanliness is ignored.

According to the CDC, there are around seventy-six million cases of foodborne illnesses each year in the United States. Many of those instances could have been prevented had those involved in food preparation taken a few extra precautions.

Pest Prevention

Nobody wants to think about pests in the kitchen. Yet, that is a reality one must face if their kitchen isn’t up to par. Keeping a kitchen clean and free of food scraps will help prevent pests from finding a new home.

Efficiency

Believe it or not, another solid reason to keep one’s kitchen clean is for efficiency’s sake. It is much easier to work in a kitchen that is clean and well organized. Imagine tearing apart your kitchen trying to find the one specific ingredient needed. Wouldn’t it be so much easier just to keep everything where it belongs?

Additionally, efficiently takes another form when storing food properly. It is easier to know what food will go rancid first when the fridge is nicely organized to indicate this. For example, if there are two jugs of milk in the refrigerator, both with different expiration dates, the older one should get used up first. This is both efficient and helps reduce food waste.

Safety

Let us not forget about yet another important reason for keeping one’s kitchen clean: safety. A well-stocked kitchen is full of hot surfaces, sharp tools, and other potential risks. As such, keeping a kitchen clean and organized will help prevent nasty surprises from arising. It’s harder to be surprised by a sharp blade if they are all stored where they belong.

Article originally published on FerneKornfeld.org