We’ve all heard the phrase, the kitchen is the heart of the home. If you’ve ever hosted a gathering you know this to be true. Guests naturally gather around the kitchen island to stand near the carefully arranged snack trays. Maybe it’s the delicious smells of dinner or the warmth created from cooking, but we spend a lot of time in this one room. A recent study found that Americans spend over 400 hours per year in their kitchen. Most have fond memories of cooking with their families while growing up and want to create them in their own homes.
Your kitchen should create happy memories and be a place of smiles and delicious food. If you find that your kitchen is overrun with clutter and toxic products that are stealing your joy, it’s time to make a change. You can easily make your kitchen cleaner and more environmentally friendly by making some simple swaps in your space. If you’re not sure where to start, take a look at one of the most sustainable resources on the planet, bamboo.
Why Bamboo Is Perfect in the Kitchen
Bamboo is a very versatile plant that’s used across industries. It’s strong enough to replace steel in construction, soft enough for your favorite sheets, and beautiful enough to be used as decor in your home. But my favorite place to use bamboo is in the kitchen. I want my kitchen to feel fresh and clean while also feeling cozy to guests. Bamboo kitchen products keep my home toxin free without adding clutter.
Improve Your Health
The most important impact you’ll have when creating a sustainable kitchen is an improvement in your health. Many popular kitchen products are made with chemicals to make them more durable. While melamine and Teflon pans may seem like they'll make your life easier, they can leech toxic chemicals into your food. They've also been linked to many health problems like endocrine disorders and cancer. Even without the chemicals, plastic cutting boards can harbor dangerous bacteria which is the last thing you want near your food. Bamboo kitchen products don't need all the extra chemicals to work for you. They don't even need chemicals to grow!
Surrounding yourself with bamboo can also improve your emotional well-being. According to a 2017 study from Sichuan Agricultural University, viewing bamboo can help you relax and decrease anxiety and stress. It can also help improve focus, which I definitely need when trying out a new recipe.
Reduce Plastic Waste
The most obvious benefit of switching to bamboo in your kitchen is reduced plastic waste. Plastic waste is the largest environmental pollutant in the world, even if companies claim their items can be recycled. Just because plastic can be recycled doesn’t mean it will be recycled. Only 9% of plastic ever makes it through the recycling center. The rest ends up breaking into microplastics and entering our water, air, and food supplies.
Switching to bamboo means you‘ll be bringing all-natural materials into your kitchen. The majority of bamboo kitchen products are reusable and biodegradable. You can usually compost them at the end of their lifecycle. Instead of adding plastic to the ocean, you can break down your old bamboo spoons if your backyard compost bin!
Save Money
You may be surprised to hear you can save money by switching to bamboo. Many eco-friendly kitchen products are thought to be more expensive. Bamboo is an incredibly strong and durable material which means it will last for years. You’ll save money by not replacing broken and worn-out utensils or buying wasteful disposables.
Bamboo is a renewable resource that can be harvested many times during its lifetime so it's an inexpensive alternative to plastic. The long-term cost of producing plastic made from oil is much higher than bamboo in both dollars and impact on the planet.
How to Add Bamboo to Your Kitchen
When considering how to bring bamboo into your kitchen, think through how you serve your family or guests. There are perfect bamboo kitchen products to help with prep, cooking, serving, clean up, and storage. Really, what else do you need for an eco-friendly kitchen? I’ve pulled together my top recommendations of where to change to bamboo so you can enjoy clean and green meal times with family and friends.
Food Prep and Cooking
Creating a healthy and eco-friendly kitchen starts well before the meal hits the table. Think about creating an eco-friendly kitchen through the stages of making a meal, beginning with the prep.
Reusable Bamboo Shopping Bags
Start your journey to a more sustainable kitchen before you even walk through your front door. Grab a stack of reusable bamboo shopping bags for buying all those healthy ingredients you keep telling yourself to eat. Sling it over your shoulder and you'll feel like wandering your favorite farmers market instead of grabbing a box of mac and cheese.
To be sure you actually use your bamboo shopping bags, keep them in your car after each use. You’ll no longer need to own a plastic bag filled with plastic bags.
Bamboo Cutting Boards
Now that you’ve successfully bought all that produce, don’t let it die in the back of your fridge. That was the old you. The new you has a clean, healthy space to chop them up for every meal on your stylish bamboo cutting board. While technically grass, bamboo can be formed into a thick sturdy board that’s water and odor resistant. My favorite boards from Royal Craft Wood also have grooves around the edges to catch any juice and keep your countertops clean.
To keep your cutting board in tip-top shape, be sure to treat it with mineral oil every few uses. The food-safe oil will keep the board from drying out and cracking over time.
Bamboo Utensils
Whether you consider yourself a Gordon Ramsey in the kitchen or somehow manage to burn water, the right tools will make cooking easier. It's time to say goodbye to those plastic spatulas and spoons that melt into your food and always seem to bend at the worse moment. Swap them out for bamboo utensils for a much less stressful cooking experience.
Bamboo utensils are all natural so they won’t leech any dangerous chemicals into your food. They’re also more durable than plastic. You can whip your meringue until you see those perfect peaks (or scrap your half-burnt filet off the pan) without having to worry about breakage. Plus, you can store them all in a decorative bamboo holder to add function and style.
Serve Sustainably
Next up is how you can serve your meals in a healthy and environmentally friendly way. Bamboo can be used for everything from plates to spoons and every type of serve ware between.
Bamboo Serving Boards
You don’t need a four-course home-cooked meal to create a memorable dinner party. Pick one or two details to wow your guests starting with a delicious, seasonal charcuterie board. Pile up sliced meats and cheese along with fruits, nuts, and crackers for a pre-dinner mini feast served up on a bamboo serving board. I love that these boards are nontoxic and are easily washed with warm water. Many have drawers for cheese knives so you’ll have everything you need for a night of book club or Netflix.
Pro tip: Add a generous handful of dark chocolate squares to your bamboo serving board to impress even the pickiest guest.