5 Tips for Wellness Design in Your Kitchen: A Guide by Jamie Gold of Wellness by Design

Kitchens are often called the heart of the home. They’re where we gather, plan and refuel our energy. How you organize and equip this crucial space can make your life easier, healthier, safer and more fun.

In my Wellness by Design: A Room-by-Room Guide to Optimizing Your Home for Health, Fitness and Happiness book (Simon & Schuster/Tiller Press, 2020), I describe the Five Facets of Wellness Design, which inspired these five tips. Let’s look at how they can influence your appliance selections.

This is the first facet, encompassing features that help you cook healthier meals. One example is steam. As a nutrition professional shared in my book, “Steaming is a great way to ensure that the nutritional quality remains intact.” By replacing a microwave with a combi-steam oven that includes convection, like the Bosch Benchmark Steam Convection Oven, you’ll be adding a versatile appliance that can cook, bake or reheat multiple dishes at once, making cooking healthier meals and entertaining easier.

Pro Tip: Look for a combi-steam oven with a water reservoir, so you don’t have to add a plumbing line.

A combi-steam oven can help you cook healthy entrees, sides and desserts all at the same time.

The second facet of wellness design is one that should always be top of mind. One way to make your kitchen safer is to choose an induction cooktop. Happily, you don’t reduce performance with this cooking style, which directs energy directly into the pot or pan. Replacing a gas flame or radiant heat with magnetic cooking power delivers professional-level performance and faster pan to table times.

Pro Tip: Look for an induction cooktop, such as a Bosch induction cooktop, that indicates when the burner is cool enough to clean and offers automatic synchronization with its ventilation hood to take the guesswork out of how much power you need to keep your kitchen safe and clean.

This facet may seem less familiar, but anyone who uses a wheelchair or walker, has arthritis, hearing issues, sports injuries or just a sore back from lifting a toddler will enjoy the benefits of being able to use their kitchen fully and easily.

A dishwasher that meets Americans with Disability Act standards with high toekick compatibility, easy grip handle and convenient loading and unloading will help everyone.

Pro Tip: If you’re adding an in-law suite your home or an accessory dwelling unit to your property, look for a compact 18” dishwasher like the Bosch 800 Series Dishwasher to fit a smaller space.

A compact dishwasher makes an in-law suite or ADU more livable for an older family member.

This fourth facet of wellness design makes life and chores easier. In the case of your hard-working refrigerator, that means finding the ingredients you need faster with better organization, getting a smart phone alert when it’s time to change the filter or if a family member leaves the fridge door open, and even getting remote diagnostics to avoid a service visit. With Bosch refrigerators enabled with Home Connect, you can incorporate these practical benefits to your daily routines.

Pro Tip: Look for a refrigerator with smart temperature and humidity settings to preserve your meats, cheeses, fruits and vegetables longer and reduce food waste.

Be sure to prioritize produce preservation when choosing a refrigerator to keep your fruits and vegetables fresher longer.

When the workday and household chores are done, it’s time for a well-deserved break. The fifth facet of wellness design lies in when you get to truly enjoy the comforts of your home. That might mean cocktails with close friends or a backyard barbecue with the whole block. Store your favorite beverages with ease in the Bosch 800 Series French Door Bottom Mount Refrigerator with Refreshment Center.

Another key component to successful gatherings is ice. It’s the complement to a cold glass of lemonade on a hot summer day and the frosty bed for outdoor party trays. Ice is purely and clearly a fun time essential, and one you don’t want to run out of this season!

Pro Tip: Look for a refrigerator with quick production and high quality filtration, such as the Bosch 500 Series French Door Bottom Mount Refrigerator with QuickIcePro System so your chilled beverages are always fresh and cold and you don’t have the sad task of leaving your party for a grocery visit.

If you enjoy summer entertaining, be sure to factor in fast, filtered ice when choosing a refrigerator!

Jamie Gold, CKD, CAPS, MCCWC is a wellness design consultant and the author of Wellness by Design: A Room-by-Room Guide to Optimizing Your Home for Health, Fitness and Happiness (Simon & Schuster/Tiller Press, 2020). You can enjoy more healthy home tips in her first and third of the month Wellness Wednesdays conversations on Clubhouse.