Feng Shui your kitchen

Preparing food
The kitchen has very negative chi because of the meat, fruit and vegetables prepared there. Once the ingredients have been turned into food they become lucky, but food being prepared, and even the smell of it, is bad feng shui. Keep the kitchen door closed as much as possible, so strong food smells don't escape and pervade the whole house. In addition, make sure that people can't see into a kitchen from the front door or from other rooms.

Herbal remedies
Fresh herbs in little pots, for immediate use, stimulate beneficial chi, because herbs are nourishing foodstuffs. Buy them regularly from your local supermarket, and keep them on the window sill, until needed; the herbs will also absorb good chi through the window. If your kitchen is connected to your dining room, fragrant herbs are good for taking away smells and stagnant or even toxic energy from food preparation.

If you wish to grow herbs yourself, however, keep them outside. Never have auspicious items, such as potted plants (or lucky ornaments, or pets' beds) in a kitchen, because the good luck that they give out will be lost within the bad energy of the room.

Protecting beds above kitchens
If your kitchen is under a bedroom, check that you don't have any beds directly above the oven. The heat from the stove top will 'cook' or 'burn' the inner chi of anyone who has to sleep regularly in that bed, attacking the immune system and bringing on niggling infections, colds, coughs, sore throats and headaches.

The best solution is to move the bed or the oven. If you can't do this, lay a silver-painted or foil-covered board under the bed, with the shiny side facing downward. The board just needs to be long enough to protect the sleeper's head and chest. In the kitchen, you can use lots of shiny, rounded metal, such as stainless-steel and chrome pans, filled with water and left on the stove top overnight. If you have a stainless-steel hood above the stove top, this is also helpful. In each case, the shiny, reflective metal represents water and will 'put out the fire'.

Working with elemental energies
In ancient China, kitchens were located in the east sector (wood) or the southeast sector (wood, with touches of water and wind). The most favoured was the southeast, where the breezes were considered to 'help keep the charcoal stove alight'. The southeast also symbolizes 'richness of life': prosperity, health and satisfying family relationships.

The table overleaf shows how fire and water fit into each pa kua location. The east and southeast can support these energies, so they're ideal for a kitchen. However, the other locations support only fire, only water or neither, so you need to blend the energies more carefully.

If you have wooden cabinets in a pa kua location that doesn't suit wood, you can still benefit from the wood's energy by painting them to go with that sector or choosing a suitable colour of wood.