A lot of people seem to assume that the kitchen hasn’t changed much over the years. And perhaps there’s an element of truth to that. After all, it’s not as if the actual function of the kitchen has changed at all! But, in fact, how we do things in the kitchen has changed in many ways. How we decorate our kitchens has also made major changes over the years. We now look to make our kitchens the hub of the home and decorate it with bright, modern lighting and art such as this girls neon sign. Perhaps people were expecting us to have robots that would prepare our meals for us by now. Heck, there were people who assumed we’d be eating all of our meals in pill forms by the year 2000. I guess we wouldn’t have needed a kitchen at all if things had turned out that way!
But the modern family is as interested in good food preparation than ever. Not only that, but we’re a lot more concerned about the effect our kitchen has on the environment. So a lot of the changes have been leaning more in these directions. Our kitchen activities haven’t changed that radically, nor are they going to change that radically in the future. But there’s no denying that change is happening in the kitchen.
We’re going to take a look at some of the amazing advances in kitchen technology. We’re going to focus on things that affect the things modern kitchen dwellers are mostly in interested in. These areas concern quality, time, health, and the environment!
Invasion of the Internet of Things!
The Internet of Things is probably a term you’ve heard or seen while browsing the Internet. But what exactly is it? To put it briefly, it refers to the installation of Internet capabilities in our everyday objects. Of course, most households nowadays have a trustworthy internet provider, such as Viasat internet, in their homes in order to make this possible. These objects will track certain data, then send that data to another device. The vast majority of the time, this will involve your smartphone.
A very popular example of this in the realm of the kitchen has, of course, to do with coffee. It’s also where the Internet of Things in the kitchen becomes really involved. We’ve been using coffee machines in the kitchen for decades, right? And they didn’t really change much in all of that time. But not you can get a coffee machine that has WiFi capabilities. At a press of a button on your smartphone, your coffee machine will get your brew going!
But it can get even more involved in that. Some of these WiFi coffee machines connect to activity trackers. If you wear one of these on your wrist while you sleep, then all sorts of information is being recorded during the night. This information can actually track how well you’ve slept. If you didn’t get enough sleep, then the coffee machine adjusts the strength of your morning brew!
This, of course, is just one example. Slow cookers, dishwashers, refrigerators, and even trash cans are featuring this sort of technology! The Internet of Things is certainly on a mission to take over the kitchen.
Thinking green
There are loads of advances that are taking the environment into account. While a lot of the technology here isn’t as flashy as some of the others, they are representative of our most “futuristic” mindset. After all, a full understanding of what our everyday activities do to the environment is a very modern thing. Just a couple of decades ago, many would never have predicted we’d ever care all that much!
The kitchen is no longer where the bulk of our energy use comes from, especially in very modern home. Nevertheless, a large portion of our energy and carbon footprints are created there. This is why its so important for us to “get with the times” when it comes to new kitchen appliances and technology.
For a lot of people, this means investing in induction cooking. While there are, of course, pros and cons to induction cooking, it is incredibly energy efficient. It’s been around for decades, but recently the demand has increased. This means that prices have been driven down, and the selection has gone up. It’s one of the must-haves when it comes to the modern kitchen. If you combine it with the right induction cookware, then you’ve got an incredibly powerful and efficient setup!
Gadgets that help reduce water output are also becoming a lot more popular these days. Thankfully, a lot of these aren’t really high-tech! (Which basically translates to “they’re very low-cost!”.) If you think about it, the amount of water you need for any given task is such a small amount of what we actually use. This is rarely something we can help. The nature of the water flow means that more than we need is always used. But advanced thinking is coming to the rescue! There are advanced faucet aerators you can install onto your kitchen tap that dissipates the water you use. This creates a high amount of moisture while using only 2-5% of the water you would otherwise have used!
Health in the kitchen
When we think about health in the kitchen, we generally think about two things. We consider the nutritional value of what we’re preparing and eating in the kitchen. We also think about things from a hygienic perspective. After all, the kitchen tends to have more harmful bacteria in it than any other room in the house!
You can get a device that acts as both scales and a preparation surface. That, of course, isn’t the high-tech part. It also quantifies the nutritional value of whatever you’re preparing! This is actually part of the expanding “Internet of Things”. It can connect to your smartphone or tablet to help you keep track of your nutrition from day to day.
As for hygiene, the trick is in making sure you clean everything properly, right? But, of course, the age-old problem is that you can’t actually see most of the harmful bacteria in your kitchen. It can be hard to tell whether or not your cleaning has actually done the trick. This is where something like the Verilux sanitizing wand. It helps makes that bacteria easier to see, as well as easier to clean. It actually looks like something that’s more befitting an episode of CSI!
