Kitchen Safety
With all of the interest in how to clean burned pans and stoves I thought, “Hmm…Maybe I should post something about kitchen safety.”
Here are some basic kitchen safety tips:
- Keep an eye on what you’re cooking.
- Keep small children out of the kitchen.
- Don’t wear loose clothing.
- Keep curtains, dish towels and pot holders away from the top of the stove.
- Make sure all pan handles are turned inward.
Keep an eye on your cooking.
Did you know that getting distracted from what you’re cooking is the number one cause of cooking fires? This is one of the main reasons I started doing as much of my meal preparation as possible while my toddlers took their nap– because I was less distracted.
Keep small children out of the kitchen.
I don’t care how you do, it but keep tiny ones out. You could trip while holding a pan of something hot or a knife or drop them. I can’t say this enough, keep them out.
Even husbands should stay out of the kitchen unless they are helping. They really need to be in the other room making sure the little ones are out of the way. I don’t know why but so many husbands can be worse than the kids about wanting attention from their wives while she is making dinner.
Don’t wear loose clothing.
You really need to be careful about your clothing, especially with some robes that ladies wear. Watch those sleeves and be careful because some man made fibers don’t even need to touch the burner in order to catch on fire.
Keep curtains, dish towels and hot pan holders away from burners.
This probably seems obvious but who out there has caught one of these things on fire before? Let’s all raise our hands. (From Mike: Only pots and pans should be on the burners. I can’t tell you how many plastic containers and utensils we’ve sacrificed in the flames! ;-)
Make sure handles are turned in.
I don’t even want to think about this one, let alone write about it. Let’s just say you don’t want to know what happens when a toddler reaches up and grabs a pan handle and pulls the pan down.
Keep those handles turned in, keep little ones out of the kitchen and get as much done when they are sleeping.
How to put out a kitchen fire:
- Smother grease or oil fires by placing a lid over the pan. Don’t carry the pan outside. Let it cool on the stove.
- Smother other food fires with baking soda. Never use water or flour. (Mike: OOps…)
- For an oven fire, keep the oven door shut and turn off heat.
- Keep a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.
- Don’t keep the fire extinguisher right next to the stove because if the fire is on or near the stove you won’t be able to get to it.
- Have smoke detectors and make sure they work.
We stew everyday about whether we or our kids are eating organic food, getting the right education and so on but sometimes we don’t pay attention to basic everyday things like keeping ourselves and families safe in the kitchen. Just a heads up.
-Jill
P.S. When I mentioned this post to my son in law (Mike) he said he thought the best safety advice when living with my daughter (Tawra) was to put a lock on the kitchen door and don’t give her the combination to it. :) :) (We love you, anyway.)
P.S.S. Thanks guys!! We know there’s a reason why I have the sign “I kiss better than I cook” hanging above my stove. Tawra
Tawra, this is your sign.
“I kiss better than I cook” hanging above my stove.
Mine is “In this kitchen I reign supreme. If you don’t agree starve.”
One very embarassing moment happened when my 2 year old who was taught to never come past the door of the kitchen.
My MIL who was not known as a wonderful cook, tried to come in a give me a hand as there were 6 extra people for dinner.
He stopped her by pulling on her dress and said “you are only allowed in if you can cook as good as mommy”
He was in the right but I did teach him to be a bit more diplomatic in stating things after that.
One my husband re-discovered a few weeks back is: before putting something in the microwave, stop and ask yourself if it’s metal. He somehow decided to put a giant metal mug in the microwave one day while I was in the shower. He knew that metal can’t be microwaved, but he just didn’t think about it before doing it!
(I love my husband, but… really???)
If you have something on the stove, don’t leave the room! We often end up with burned lentils or rice from the cook leaving the room.
Also, with little people, if you leave the room, you are not supervising a heated stove! Once, I was in the front room and noticed an orange glow coming from the kitchen. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but a little person thought they would help and something caught fire. I think it was a plastic grocery bag with trash. Anyway, we now have a kitchen rug in front of the stove to cover the burned flooring… We have a gas stove and it was not an oil fire, so using the hose from the sink worked! I think I started with a wet towel.
Yep! You always need to know where your little ones are and what they are doing! Our kitchen has three entrances and the middle of our house.