Three Ways Technology is Taking Over the Kitchen

Gone are the days of wrestling with a massive cookbook so it stays open on the recipe you want. Gone, even, are the days of physical cookbooks – for many of us, at least.

It’s a reality that technology has entered nearly every part of our life. It’s in our cars, in our workplaces, in our delivery services. There’s even technology in our homes, from electronic door looks and smart TVs to lights that can be activated through your phone. It seems inevitable, then, that technology has found its way into our kitchens.

Below are three ways technology has replaced some of the things we’re used to seeing in our kitchens.

Smart Speakers

Come on, hands up: who uses Google to answer just about any question? The search engine has become the all-knowing guru of the twenty-first century, providing results for just about all of your queries (and landing itself a spot in dictionaries).

Google has hopped onto the smart speaker bandwagon with the Google Home, a nifty device that, as its name suggests, makes your life at home easier (not to mention cooler). Google Home can be used anywhere around the house, but you’ll find its voice activated features most useful in the kitchen, where you’ll need your hands for other things.

Need a timer? Simply tell your Google Home, “OK, Google, set a timer for ten minutes,” and you’re good to go!

Need a recipe? You’re in luck. Google Home can read aloud more than five million recipes to you. Using Google Assistant or the Google Search app on your phone, find a recipe, click the ‘Send to Google Home button’, and tell your Google Home, ‘OK, Google, start cooking.’ Et voila! Google will walk you through the recipe step by step.

These are just a few of the many features that make Google Home the perfect kitchen companion. Need to know calorie counts? Want to build a shopping list? Convert units? Find wine pairings? Google Home has your back.

(You can buy one here for £129.)

Smart Kitchen Gadgets

Kitchen gadgets have, for the most part, always been electric: microwaves, toasters, mixers, you name it. But now, technology has found its sneaky way into our appliances to make them all the more useful for us.

A number of companies have begun creating ‘smart’ kitchen appliances in a bid to make the kitchen the centre of the household. That’s why you’ll find things such as the Samsung Family Hub, a refrigerator that – wait for it – comes with a giant touchscreen, Wi-Fi – and even interior cameras to let you check the contents of your fridge anytime. You can shop from the Family Hub, order food, share shopping lists with family members, play music, and even watch TV programmes – all without leaving the kitchen.

Other smart kitchen appliances that don’t necessarily come with all the bells and whistles as the Family Hub include this Instant Pot Programmable Pressure Cooker. While it may not seem like a smart gadget, your ability to program specific features on it makes it a useful tool in the kitchen. This pressure cooker even comes with a microprocessor that helps monitor the pressure and temperature of your food, keeps track of time, and adjusts heating intensity and duration, so you don’t have to.

Technology-Based Learning

This point goes hand-in-hand with the above two. With the help of smart speakers, programmable kitchen appliances, and even our smartphones, it’s no longer true that we learn all our recipes from listening to our Nan. Except for the occasional family recipe, we learn most of our recipes from online. How many times have you itched to cook something new, so you turned to the Internet for ideas?

Even the kitchen appliances we buy today may come with recipes, either in the box or programmed into the appliance itself. Cooking videos, especially, are a handy source for learning new things in the kitchen. You have something visual to follow along to as you try your hand at something new. There are even loads of cooking websites online where people can swap their own personalised recipes with complete strangers.

The advance of technology into our kitchens isn’t necessarily bad. After all, we could all use a little help in the kitchen so we don’t have to worry about forgetting something in the oven!

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Until next time…