How much unnecessary technological crap can you fit in a kitchen? Obviously this depends on your definition of unnecessary, technological and crap – in addition to the size of your wallet and kitchen. But taking a walk through the aisles of kitchen products available is a frightening display of the excellent collaboration between product developers and marketing departments.

In much of the developed world the basic kitchen contains a cooker, an oven, a fridge and a freezer. Beyond this some would argue that the microwave is a basic necessity but after that things get more complicated since the line between necessary and unnecessary becomes blurred and ever more subjective and difficult: Is a toaster a necessity? What about a coffeemaker?

Even if we limit this exploration to those products that require a powersource the list is impressive: A bread maker, rice maker, pizza maker, popcorn maker, juice maker, kitchen aid, electic knife sharpener, milk foamer, egg boiler, juicer and sandwich maker…

Of these strange products that surprise and annoy me the most are the ones which are completely unnecessary – I know the term is vague – the pizza maker, the egg boiler and popcorn maker are all excellent examples of products which do not really increase efficiency in the kitchen. These three machines do not make the tasks of boiling eggs, poping corn or making pizza any easier. They are products which show the great advances which can be made so long as there is a strong marketing department creating desire.