I was working on the Design of stoves and Dr. Surya Prakash was working on the concept of open house, we have discussed and evolved this cocept note for healthy kitchens..

1. HEALTHY KITCHENS
..A CONCEPT NOTE FOR DISCUSSION
THE HEALTHY FOOD WE GET FROM THE WORLD
Food is the basic need. Access to healthy food is a major concern globally. The core values of
‘Healthy Kitchen’ are:
 Quality of food
 Taste of food
 Hygiene of food
There are many who are not able to access healthy food for various reasons.
 Time required for cooking
 Right kind of fuel / energy required to cook
 Use of right ingredients
 Cost of the ingredients
 Time required for choosing and fetching the ingredients
 Unhygienic conditions in the kitchen due to bad practices
 One does not know cooking well
 Due to age factor they are not able to cook
 Unable to serve the fresh food – food is cooked once in a day or less frequently
 For health reasons different types of food to be served in a family
 The cost of food to buy is high
 There are not hygiene and good food outlets in the vicinity
Healthy kitchens would address all the above issues through various approaches. Some are like:
Model one
Creating healthy kitchen (would have various parameters of a Healthy Kitchen)
- Fire source for cooking

2. - Lighting at the cooking place
- Cleanliness of the premises and utensils
- Food Preparation area and cleanliness
- Food storage area
- Cooking food method
- Storage of spatula
- Cooked food storage
- Serving room and place
- Cleanliness of the stove area
- Waste vegetables storage
- Waste food storage area
- Waste material such as plastic covers, etc.
- Regular cleaning of the kitchen, no visibility of pests
- Cleanliness of the person cooking
- Apron and other accessories a must while cooking
- Hands should not be used for tasting the food
- Other habits of the cook – scratching, rubbing, etc.
- Methods of converting or value addition of kitchen waste, such as composting
Applicability of Healthy Kitchen concept
- Applicable to community kitchens
- Institutional kitchens
- Private enterprises
- Local door to door vendors
- Individual enterprises created
- Open House Kitchens, etc
Outreach of the food cooked
- Children in schools
- Youth
- Old people
- Destitutes
- Families
- Working people, etc.
-
The secondary stakeholders
A) Dr. Surya Prakash, Life-HRG

3. B) Fr. Chittoor
C) Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy, GEO
D) National Institute of Nutrition (NIN)
E) Indian School of Business (ISB)
F) Government
G) Institutions such as banks for supporting the enterprises
H) Civil society, etc.
Two models of serving the food
A) Valuation or ranking of the kitchens for declaring as “Healthy Kitchens”, independent
assessment of the existing enterprises.
B) Creating enterprises using women and youth for cooking and delivering (the model
would be in between Swagruha and Dabbawalas.