Have a good look at your kitchen and dining area right now.

What’s on top of your table? Maybe a handbag, set of keys, kids’ homework, assorted groceries and a few documents? How about your kitchen island bench? A laptop, phone, charger, plates, towels, oven mits?

In any case, if clutter is in any part of your kitchen, it will also be in your mind and, when it comes to food, that probably means cooking will feel like a massive chore.

If you want to start eating healthily, your kitchen needs to be kept in good order and clutter is detrimental to good physical and mental health. If you have a clean, organised, inviting kitchen, you’ll be much more likely to want to spend time there creating healthy, clean food.

Organisational expert Peter Walsh has spoken about the connection between clutter and weight gain. He has great tips on standardising food storage in the cupboards, pantry and fridge. He suggests throwing out foods in the pantry that are rarely used and shouldn’t ever be used, storing food in uniform canisters instead. 

You can put flowers and your nicest dishes on the table to deter people from using it as a dumping ground and containers in the fridge are great for grouping items together such as condiments, cheese, meat and vegetables.

He also suggests emptying all the contents of your kitchen utensils drawer into a cardboard box and only returning a utensil to the drawer when you take it out of the box to use it.  If it’s still in the box after a month, you can discard it. So, that’s the end of the ice cream scooper!

It all becomes far more inviting for whoever is preparing the food when it’s an organised space. The cooking becomes easier with easy access to ingredients and implements, it’s easier to move around and more practical on every level.

Any chef will tell you that good cooking starts with good implements, namely a quality knife. I’m a fan of the V-slicer which is great for chopping vegetables and whipping up a vege slaw in about 2 seconds. 

Much of the resistance to cooking is about time but what if it was easy and an exciting new adventure to discover an untapped skill in a kitchen that was so organised, everyone wanted to gather there to talk, share a meal and maybe even share in its preparation too.