Kitchen Cleanliness

Kitchen – an extension of altar

The kitchen is an extension of the altar because whatever is cooked there will be offered to the Deities. Çréla Prabhupäda instructs:

The kitchen department should be very clean and things should not be wasted. This is the first consideration. [Letter to Akshayananda, Nellore, January 06, 1976]

The kitchen should be very neat & clean, washed twice daily, opened nicely and smeared with water and gobar. [Room Conversation, Melbourne, April 22, 1976]

One cannot eat food from the kitchen unless it is offered to the Deity. If something is taken before being offered to the Deity, the entire preparation is polluted and can no longer be offered. [SB 9.6.8 Purport]

If, in the cooking process, food falls on the floor, if it is raw and can be washed nicely, then it can be offered. But if it is prepared and cannot be washed, then it is not to be offered, but can be eaten rather than be wasted. [Letter to: Jadurani, Los Angeles, February 15, 1968]

Wear only clean, uncontaminated clothes in the kitchen.

Do not talk unnecessarily in the kitchen.

Do not wear shoes in the kitchen.

Before and after cooking clean up the cooking platform, stove, sink etc.

Don’t use brooms or clothes used for cleaning the floor to clean vessels used for cooking.

Do not eat inside the kitchen.

Do not rinse your mouth in the kitchen sink.

Do not smell / taste foods being prepared for the Lord.

Do not eat directly from the Deities' plate. Transfer the prasädam to another vessel or plate before being eaten.

The temple standard is that one should not begin eating until the Deities' plates have been washed.

Considerations in cooking

Hands should always be washed when preparing prasädam, and in this way, everything shall be prepared very cleanly and pure. [Letter to: Aniruddha, Montreal, June 16, 1968]

Everything should be always kept neat and clean, and the foodstuffs should be prepared in a neat and clean manner. [SB 4.7.17 Purport]

Wash your hands before preparing bhoga.

If you touch the floor or garbage cans or the lower part of your body, wash the hands.

If you have any infectious disease, do not work in the kitchen area; this will contaminate the bhoga and the vessels.

Absolute caution should be taken that NO HAIR falls in to the offering and contaminates it.

Refrigerator Cleanliness

Food, which has been offered, should never be put back into the refrigerator with the unoffered foods, or brought back into the kitchen. You should prepare, as much as can be consumed, and after offering, nothing should be put back in the refrigerator, or kitchen. Refrigerator should always be very cleansed and pure. If there is any food extra, that should be kept separately; and if there is a separate refrigerator, not within the kitchen and not having in it any unoffered foods, then you may have such special refrigerator for leftover prasädam. [Letter to: Aniruddha, Montreal, June 16, 1968]

The more careful one is in regard to these small rules, the more one can become conscious that one is not cooking for oneself, but for Lord Kåñëa Himself.