A green kitchen is one designed to achieve two basic goals: First, do less harm to the environment than the typical kitchen, and second, actively help to clean up the environment when possible.
The latter goal is harder to achieve, but it's possible, mostly by way of green building materials such as bamboo. Bamboo butcher blocks are kinder to the environment than traditional wood, since bamboo grows back quickly after it's harvested. Build that bamboo butcher block into a recycled-material countertop, and you're doing all sorts of good. A countertop called IceStone actually uses recycled glass and concrete in its mix, materials that otherwise would end up in a landfill.
In kitchen design, green doesn't just mean recycling. Doing less harm to the environment also means cutting back on the use of and exposure to potentially harmful chemicals in our lives. You can find formaldehyde-free cooking cutting surfaces now. Formaldehyde is a chemical found in most homes (in cleaners and carpet, for instance). It's used in some wood products as a bonding ingredient, and it can produce an allergic reaction in certain people if they're overexposed to it [source: ATSDR].
Cooking green is also an overall approach to kitchen (and home) design -- it's not just product-specific. You can have your kitchen set up to be more energy efficient by connecting appliances so they benefit from one another's work. For instance, you can arrange it so the heat created by the compressor in your refrigerator is diverted to your dishwasher to heat the water.
4. Dual-fuel Ranges
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Top chefs prefer gas ranges to electric, but electric ovens are more efficient than gas. With dual-fuel ranges, you can have the best of both worlds.Most of us have to choose between gas and electric when it comes to our kitchen range. There are pros and cons to each -- neither is a perfect cooking system.
Gas is better for stovetop cooking, because it's a far more controllable heat source. Gas burners heat up faster and cool down faster than electric ones, and temperature gradations are more precise. Electric is a less efficient source for the stove. However, it's the more efficient heat source for the oven, and it's easier to incorporate a self-cleaning oven feature in an electric range.
Dual-fuel ranges mean you don't have to choose between gas and electric. New ones come with a gas stovetop, which is the preferable cooking method when using pots and pans, and an electric range for a more efficient, self-cleaning oven. It may be kind of a pain to install either a gas line or a proper electrical outlet if you don't already have both in your range space. If you do, though, you just hook it up like any other range.
While we're on the topic, another big plus in new ranges is induction cooking. Induction burners heat up faster and are more efficient than both gas and regular electric.
Efficiency is huge right now not only because of power bills, but also due to increased concern about energy availability. Along these lines, environmentally friendly kitchen design is really taking off.
5. Concrete Countertops
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Concrete makes for a versatile countertop.Concrete countertops have been around for a couple of decades now, but they've only recently started to gain widespread popularity. You may have seen one before but didn't know it -- a concrete countertop doesn't look like what most of us think of as "concrete." What does it look like, then?
Pretty much anything you want. The biggest draw of concrete is that it's almost indefinitely malleable. The concrete starts like the stuff used in sidewalks, but that's where the similarity ends. A concrete countertop can look like stone -- polished or unpolished. Depending on the additives in the slurry, the look can be rustic, modern or extremely artistic. You can add a huge range of material to the concrete base, anything from bits of metal to brightly colored pigments to pebbles to seashells.
In fact, one of the coolest things about the material is the customization available. Because you're starting with a slurry and not a block of stone, you can really personalize it according to your needs. Some people have cutting boards, knife slots, drain boards or even a meandering stream built right into the countertop.
In most ways, the finished product acts a lot like marble or granite. The only issue you might need to deal with is stains from things like red wine. The countertop is sealed, but concrete sealers aren't totally stain-resistant.
Next up, another best-of-both-worlds trend, this one to pump up your culinary style.