Now days when houses are wired, there are certain types of circuits that need to be run in the kitchen and they are called GFCI circuits. The kitchen MUST have a minimum of two GFCI circuits in the kitchen to for the protection of the appliances and also the person(s) operating the appliance(s).
In the NEC code book, it is referred to as a small appliance circuit. IF you ever notice the Outlets in the kitchen, they are different from the rest of the house. They have a two buttons on there, one is test and the other is reset. These devices act as circuit breakers to prevent harmful currents. Once a pre-determined level of current is reached, the GFCI will trip, resulting in loss of power to whatever load it was carrying.
All wiring in a house is connected to a circuit breaker, if not there would be no power distributed.
Hope this helps you!!!