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We need to downgrade our expectations some in the US for what a minimum, viable kitchen is. We tend to have oversized refrigerators compared to other countries

We need to downgrade our expectations some in the US for what a minimum, viable kitchen is. We tend to have oversized refrigerators compared to other countries and it's actually problematic because you can't keep milk cold enough to not spoil in a mostly empty, oversized fridge. European kitchens for a family tend to have fridges like US hotels and dorm rooms. My understanding is most Japanese kitchens have no oven. They use a wok for most things. We have ridiculous minimum standards and it actively gets in the way of providing basic, decent housing.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
golergka 4y ago
Trade-offs. Americans might have huge kitchens, but you don't usually have several cafes and restaurants that make great food 10-15 meters from your house entrance. Last place I lived at in Istanbul had it right on the first floor — I didn't even have to go out to "go out".
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  I'm all for adding those cafes, please and thank you.
  - golergka 4y ago
    As I said: trade-offs. Huge spaces, cafes and other amenities of an urban walkable center, (relatively) affordable — you can only choose two. I don't see how a first-world city (where a barista gets $15 an hour and not $200 a month) can have apartments that would be the same size as a typical american suburban home that would cost less than $1 million. Europeans choose urban centers with small or even tiny (Paris) apartments. Americans choose suburban huge homes.
    - DoreenMichele 4y ago
      Lots of Americans are homeless. Most of them don't want to be. Many Americans would like other options on the table. I'm one of them.
      - anthony_d 4y ago
        Of course most people want options, codifying how to have options is tricky though. That also doesn't change the fact that most people in Europe and US choose to have large single family homes if the option is available.
    - ovi256 4y ago
      > Europeans choose urban centers with small or even tiny (Paris) apartments Some Europeans choose that. However, a bit more than half (56% in France, similar elsewhere) choose single family houses. That percentage is highest in Scandinavia, lowest in Spain (~33%) and Eastern Europe. Quick googling shows US has ~75% of the pop living in single family houses, similar to Scandinavia. It seems when people have the means, they choose to live in houses.
      - xienze 4y ago
        > It seems when people have the means, they choose to live in houses. I’m not sure why this point escapes so many people. When your country is vast in size and all it takes is a little bit of driving to get where you need to go, most people are going to choose big, cheap houses to tiny, expensive apartments all day long.
        CrashedSandal 4y ago
        As a person living in a tiny,expensive apartment. I dream of medium sized suburban home without HOA.
    - numinoid 4y ago
      Where are these home sized apartments you speak of?
stackbutterflow 4y ago
George H. W. Bush said "The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period."[0] Where do Americans stand on this in 2022? [0]https://www.ipsnews.net/2012/05/us-lifestyle-is-not-up-for-negotiation https://www.ipsnews.net/2012/05/us-lifestyle-is-not-up-for-n...
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  Oh, let's all go back to farms without electricity and horse and buggy, shall we? God forbid anything should change. Status quo is God.
- FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
  Lol, it's something to escape, not something to defend.
em500 4y ago
I can't speak for all of Europe, but here in Amsterdam most people have a decent supermarket within walking (<15min) or cycling (<5min) distance, with plenty of unprocessed / raw ingredients (so not mini-markets that mostly sell sandwiches and microwave meals). So we tend to buy groceries often (daily or every other day) and in small portions, or even on a whim. We also don't own a car (yes we do have a child, and we know plenty of multi-child families without cars). AFAICT, that's a lifestyle that's not available to most Americans. The flipside is of course that our houses are tiny by American standards. In the few Asian cities I visited, there were also plenty of small cheap eateries in walking distance.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  Not actually relevant. Household size in the US has been trending down. We have more 1-3 person households and fewer large families. When I got divorced and my family size shrank from 4 people to 3, we had to start putting extra stuff in the fridge so the milk wouldn't spoil.
  - em500 4y ago
    Of course it's relevant. Household sizes have also been trending down in Europe and Asia. But even for small households, if you need to drive >20min to buy milk, bread, eggs and unprocessed veggies, you only do that once per week or two weeks and need a bigger fridge. OTOH if you you have a big supermarket in the same building or block, you barely need any fridge at all.
    - DoreenMichele 4y ago
      To be clear, I would like to see more mixed use, walkable neighborhoods in the US. I have lived without a car for more than a decade in the US. I've been extremely poor and living in small spaces and spent some years homeless. You're theorizing. I'm speaking from firsthand experience (plus substantial research).
      - em500 4y ago
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
You mostly adapt your fridge size to your way of living. Living off of sales, not having a decent convenience store nearby, making meals preemptively etc. all contribute to having a bigger fridge. This was still pretty bad here a few years ago when most shops in a 30km radius would be closed for multiple days on end for religious holidays, most big families would stock up big time. That's the big thing Tokyo does best. If going to a convenience store is actually convenient, you don't need a large fridge at all, except for some niche situations most people don't care for anyway (cooking dishes which require a lot of space in the fridge/oven/freezer). I'd also wager eating staples kept in cupboards helps. Can't speak for the remainder of the kitchen though. You don't need 4/8 stoves, an oven etc., but appliances don't take that much space when packed together. Even fridges don't really take that much more space.
throwaway22032 4y ago
Can you clarify what is meant here by minimum standards? I'm not American. Over here in the UK no-one is stopping me from replacing my fridge with whatever fridge I want. It's weird for me to imagine that this could be otherwise. Like, it's just plugged in.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
  I think Doreen just meant expectations. There's a mildly amusing joke I don't quite recall right now about how everything in America is big. Serving sizes, houses, cars, political parties, theme parks, the people...
  - DoreenMichele 4y ago
    In the case of housing standards, a lot of stuff is codified in zoning laws and such. Our legal standards for what constitutes minimum acceptable housing actively fosters homelessness and any discussion of how those standards are excessive -- even in comparison to other developed countries with high quality of life -- gets ridiculous replies completely shooting down the idea that if civilized, well heeled people in other developed countries can feed a large family with a smaller kitchen, then maybe we have room to design smaller kitchens in some of our housing units.
    - yazanobeidi 4y ago
      If one’s standards exceed what they can provide for, they are beholden to that which can. Seems to be “a feature not a bug” because as you suggest, this is actually problematic for people trying to live a simple dignified life.
    - throwaway22032 4y ago
      Ah, gotcha. IMO these standards just make no sense at all, scrap them. The market is literally designed to sort this sort of issue out - if you want a bigger kitchen pay for it, someone will provide. Artificially restricting the minimum size of dwellings is just forcing people to either overpay for housing or be homeless.
ume 4y ago
Most Japanese kitchens have a combined microwave and oven; the oven is consequently small compared to one in the US but works well enough. Woks are used for Chinese cooking and so aren't standard in a Japanese kitchen. The fridges are small by comparison but, especially in cities, most people shop several times a week and so space isn't a problem.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  Thank you.
- Timpy 4y ago
  Having a walkable city makes frequent grocery shopping much more comfortable. When I lived in Osaka there was a grocery store between my apartment and my nearest station. I only had to meal plan a day at a time, my food was always fresh, I never bought more than I needed and ended up tossing out food that I didn't get around to cooking. Every grocery store was walking distance to another grocery store, all the way from my place to the downtown Namba. Grocery shopping in the states is such a pain in the ass that I don't want to do it more than once a week, and my friends have trouble understanding why I hate car culture.
staz 4y ago
I'm not sure I understand the link between how full the fridge is and how well it can maintain the temperature of the milk? In Europe, the milk is pasteurized at a higher temperature so it can keep for much longer
- galoisgirl 4y ago
  When you open a fridge full of stuff, it stays cold. When you open a fridge full of air, warm air enters.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

golergka 4y ago

Trade-offs. Americans might have huge kitchens, but you don't usually have several cafes and restaurants that make great food 10-15 meters from your house entrance. Last place I lived at in Istanbul had it right on the first floor — I didn't even have to go out to "go out".

DoreenMichele 4y ago
I'm all for adding those cafes, please and thank you.
- golergka 4y ago
  As I said: trade-offs. Huge spaces, cafes and other amenities of an urban walkable center, (relatively) affordable — you can only choose two. I don't see how a first-world city (where a barista gets $15 an hour and not $200 a month) can have apartments that would be the same size as a typical american suburban home that would cost less than $1 million. Europeans choose urban centers with small or even tiny (Paris) apartments. Americans choose suburban huge homes.
  - DoreenMichele 4y ago
    Lots of Americans are homeless. Most of them don't want to be. Many Americans would like other options on the table. I'm one of them.
    - anthony_d 4y ago
      Of course most people want options, codifying how to have options is tricky though. That also doesn't change the fact that most people in Europe and US choose to have large single family homes if the option is available.
  - ovi256 4y ago
    > Europeans choose urban centers with small or even tiny (Paris) apartments Some Europeans choose that. However, a bit more than half (56% in France, similar elsewhere) choose single family houses. That percentage is highest in Scandinavia, lowest in Spain (~33%) and Eastern Europe. Quick googling shows US has ~75% of the pop living in single family houses, similar to Scandinavia. It seems when people have the means, they choose to live in houses.
    - xienze 4y ago
      > It seems when people have the means, they choose to live in houses. I’m not sure why this point escapes so many people. When your country is vast in size and all it takes is a little bit of driving to get where you need to go, most people are going to choose big, cheap houses to tiny, expensive apartments all day long.
      - CrashedSandal 4y ago
        As a person living in a tiny,expensive apartment. I dream of medium sized suburban home without HOA.
  - numinoid 4y ago
    Where are these home sized apartments you speak of?

stackbutterflow 4y ago

George H. W. Bush said "The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period."[0] Where do Americans stand on this in 2022? [0]https://www.ipsnews.net/2012/05/us-lifestyle-is-not-up-for-negotiation https://www.ipsnews.net/2012/05/us-lifestyle-is-not-up-for-n...

DoreenMichele 4y ago
Oh, let's all go back to farms without electricity and horse and buggy, shall we? God forbid anything should change. Status quo is God.
FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
Lol, it's something to escape, not something to defend.

em500 4y ago

I can't speak for all of Europe, but here in Amsterdam most people have a decent supermarket within walking (<15min) or cycling (<5min) distance, with plenty of unprocessed / raw ingredients (so not mini-markets that mostly sell sandwiches and microwave meals). So we tend to buy groceries often (daily or every other day) and in small portions, or even on a whim. We also don't own a car (yes we do have a child, and we know plenty of multi-child families without cars). AFAICT, that's a lifestyle that's not available to most Americans. The flipside is of course that our houses are tiny by American standards. In the few Asian cities I visited, there were also plenty of small cheap eateries in walking distance.

DoreenMichele 4y ago
Not actually relevant. Household size in the US has been trending down. We have more 1-3 person households and fewer large families. When I got divorced and my family size shrank from 4 people to 3, we had to start putting extra stuff in the fridge so the milk wouldn't spoil.
- em500 4y ago
  Of course it's relevant. Household sizes have also been trending down in Europe and Asia. But even for small households, if you need to drive >20min to buy milk, bread, eggs and unprocessed veggies, you only do that once per week or two weeks and need a bigger fridge. OTOH if you you have a big supermarket in the same building or block, you barely need any fridge at all.
  - DoreenMichele 4y ago
    To be clear, I would like to see more mixed use, walkable neighborhoods in the US. I have lived without a car for more than a decade in the US. I've been extremely poor and living in small spaces and spent some years homeless. You're theorizing. I'm speaking from firsthand experience (plus substantial research).
    - em500 4y ago

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

You mostly adapt your fridge size to your way of living. Living off of sales, not having a decent convenience store nearby, making meals preemptively etc. all contribute to having a bigger fridge. This was still pretty bad here a few years ago when most shops in a 30km radius would be closed for multiple days on end for religious holidays, most big families would stock up big time. That's the big thing Tokyo does best. If going to a convenience store is actually convenient, you don't need a large fridge at all, except for some niche situations most people don't care for anyway (cooking dishes which require a lot of space in the fridge/oven/freezer). I'd also wager eating staples kept in cupboards helps. Can't speak for the remainder of the kitchen though. You don't need 4/8 stoves, an oven etc., but appliances don't take that much space when packed together. Even fridges don't really take that much more space.

throwaway22032 4y ago

Can you clarify what is meant here by minimum standards? I'm not American. Over here in the UK no-one is stopping me from replacing my fridge with whatever fridge I want. It's weird for me to imagine that this could be otherwise. Like, it's just plugged in.

TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
I think Doreen just meant expectations. There's a mildly amusing joke I don't quite recall right now about how everything in America is big. Serving sizes, houses, cars, political parties, theme parks, the people...
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  In the case of housing standards, a lot of stuff is codified in zoning laws and such. Our legal standards for what constitutes minimum acceptable housing actively fosters homelessness and any discussion of how those standards are excessive -- even in comparison to other developed countries with high quality of life -- gets ridiculous replies completely shooting down the idea that if civilized, well heeled people in other developed countries can feed a large family with a smaller kitchen, then maybe we have room to design smaller kitchens in some of our housing units.
  - yazanobeidi 4y ago
    If one’s standards exceed what they can provide for, they are beholden to that which can. Seems to be “a feature not a bug” because as you suggest, this is actually problematic for people trying to live a simple dignified life.
  - throwaway22032 4y ago
    Ah, gotcha. IMO these standards just make no sense at all, scrap them. The market is literally designed to sort this sort of issue out - if you want a bigger kitchen pay for it, someone will provide. Artificially restricting the minimum size of dwellings is just forcing people to either overpay for housing or be homeless.

ume 4y ago

Most Japanese kitchens have a combined microwave and oven; the oven is consequently small compared to one in the US but works well enough. Woks are used for Chinese cooking and so aren't standard in a Japanese kitchen. The fridges are small by comparison but, especially in cities, most people shop several times a week and so space isn't a problem.

DoreenMichele 4y ago
Thank you.
Timpy 4y ago
Having a walkable city makes frequent grocery shopping much more comfortable. When I lived in Osaka there was a grocery store between my apartment and my nearest station. I only had to meal plan a day at a time, my food was always fresh, I never bought more than I needed and ended up tossing out food that I didn't get around to cooking. Every grocery store was walking distance to another grocery store, all the way from my place to the downtown Namba. Grocery shopping in the states is such a pain in the ass that I don't want to do it more than once a week, and my friends have trouble understanding why I hate car culture.

staz 4y ago

I'm not sure I understand the link between how full the fridge is and how well it can maintain the temperature of the milk? In Europe, the milk is pasteurized at a higher temperature so it can keep for much longer

galoisgirl 4y ago
When you open a fridge full of stuff, it stays cold. When you open a fridge full of air, warm air enters.