It is inevitable. Unless you do absolutely no frying in your kitchen, or never work with oils and butter, your kitchen cabinets will eventually take on a patina of fingerprints, frying residue, and smoke from frying. Replacing cabinets that are sticky with frying residue and smudged with fingerprints can be expensive, especially in a large kitchen. So your best alternative is to refinish them. It is not a difficult task, and the beauty of doing so is it allows you to change the color and add detailing that wasn't originally there.
