It’s at this time of year, when the mass clear-outs start that it becomes apparent just how much stuff we have! Stuff we don’t need, want, use or even remember owning! I like to consider myself pretty ruthless when it comes to de-cluttering – donating it to charity shops or sticking on bits on eBay – to the point I don’t keep sentimental paintings/crafts etc from the kids, baby clothes or photographs! I’m an avid listener of The Minimalists’ podcast and went as far as to watch their film. But, when Breville challenged me, as part of their #HomeHeroes ambassadorship, to riffle through my drawers and dig out the kitchen gadgets I don’t actually use – I was surprised to see that I was clearly suffering from clutter-denial! From the back of our drawers I salvaged the spiralizer from my “of course courgettie tastes great kids! It’s just like spaghetti!” phase (it is not like spaghetti!!); a zester, used once for a lemon drizzle cake (I am not a baker but the cake was very lemon-y!!); a personalised, silver Marmite lid; a ‘too posh to use’ chopping board and, an apple slicer/corer (what’s wrong with a bloomin’ knife?!) – amongst other defunct kitchen gizmos.
But I’m in good/abundant company, 75% of Brits admit to owning kitchen gadgets we never use; on average, each household is stashing a whopping 18 bits of culinary tech with a breathtaking 81% of people using some only once or twice! And we’re not exactly brimming with kitchen space in which to house our fandangled kitchen goods either, 44% of us struggle with space in our kitchens. So, why are we a nation of kitchen-crap hoarders?! We’re essentially suckers for anything that promises to save us time and/or make us eat more healthily; additionally, with an average of 10 meals being prepared at home each week, almost 20% of us buy appliances that claim to assist in making more homemade and wholesome meals.
The best use for the useless items from our kitchen was to donate them to Casper’s play-doh kitchen!
But all is not lost, Breville have made it their mission to ensure the kitchen gadgets we bring into our homes, not only get used often, but cover a multitude of jobs – replacing 5 items in one! A fifth of brits voted their multi-purpose blender as a kitchen ‘must-have’. I reviewed the Breville Blend Active Blender and Accessory Pack in December (see my review and kids’ green smoothie recipe here) and, so far, have managed to do away with the small blender – who’s only purpose was pesto making, milk frother, lemon juicer, smoothie maker and coffee grinder!
But, it would seem that the item we all can’t live without, or at least 75% of us (erm, I’m not sure I can be friends with the remaining 25%), is our kettle! As a nation of tea lovers, we clearly love nothing more than popping on the kettle for a brew – which brings me seamlessly to a link of my previous blog post for Breville on how to make the perfect morning cuppa!
In case you’re interested us Brits also love our toaster and slow-cooker, which came out on top along with the kettle. But some of our worst buys and most useless gadgets:
Banana Holder
Banana Slicer
Egg Cracker
Square Eggs Maker
Pizza Scissors
Who even comes up with these things?!
Well, that brings me to the end of my Breville #HomeHeroes ambassadorship *sad face*; overall, Breville have managed to streamline our kitchen and home equipment to ensure I’m left with streamlined, space saving, multi-purpose and most importantly – really useful, home gadgets – true Home Heroes!
All research quoted in this post was conducted on behalf of Breville by Onepoll in October This post amongst a total of 2000 respondents. This post was sponsored by Breville, but, as always all comments, opinions and anecdotes are truthful and my own.
