sky machines: Sandwich Math, and the other best things about night

October 26, 2012

Sandwich Math, and the other best things about night

If you like confusing feelings that remind you of being a teenager or thinking about the number infinity or wondering what would happen if you mixed nail polish and nail polish remover and if you can do that experiment in your apartment without losing your deposit, you should go to Whole Foods for lunch and order a half-sandwich.

Because a "half-sandwich" at Whole Foods is made with two slices of regular bread, and getting an entire sandwich for the price of half seems like a great deal. But a half sandwich costs $4.50 which seems like not a great deal. Great deal or not a great deal? Confusing feelings like this can lead to indigestion and there's only one cure for indigestion: sandwich math.

My parents are mathematicians and my sister owns an abacus. I wanted to find out if it was cheaper to make a sandwich at home.

Step One: solve for cost of sandwich.


Here is a drawing of the equation, because food is my fourth-favorite thing to draw:


Here are my top five favorite things to draw:




Step Two: go to Fred Meyer at night and find the price of all the ingredients, which happens to be my fifth-favorite PG thing to do at night.


While I was traveling from bread to cheese I noticed that a loaf of regular bread costs about a dollar and has twice as many slices as gluten-free bread. Gluten-free bread is really expensive. That kind of bummed me out but I cheered up fast because hey, I'm price checking food at the grocery store.


At this point I was pretty confident that the Whole Foods sandwich would be cheaper. But I wasn't sure! Is the suspense killing you?! I bought some eggs.

Then I went home and added it all up while listening to Oh Yoko and playing a complicated kind of scrabble with a stranger on my phone. I hate scrabble. I lost badly. But that was the only bad news because look at this:


Making your own sandwiches is TWO TIMES CHEAPER (capitalization for emphasis). This is insane. At this price I could eat two sandwiches (is this why it's called a half-sandwich?), or one sandwich wrapped in origami paper and covered in stickers from Powell's. 

If times get tough or I need to save money to buy an electric keyboard, I might start making sandwiches with tortillas instead of bread, which will lover the price of a sandwich to $1.60, the same price as the same sandwich made on regular bread. If you can eat regular bread you're getting an amazing deal when you make a sandwich. 

Brooke's favorite food age 7-9: cold hot dog wrapped in a tortilla.
Five least favorite things to draw. (it's a matching game!)

I didn't include the price of mustard. Has anyone ever heard a funny cut the mustard joke? Besides "Has anyone ever heard a 'cut the mustard' joke that cut the mustard?" That one is hilarious.

2 comments:

  1. I've never had a half sandwich from Whole foods, but I have to try one now. Even though I now know that it is not a deal. Thanks to your brilliant sandwich math. Unfortunately, I am still lazy. (some of us have to factor laziness into our food math... and most other math too, to be honest.) Also, I just really love sandwiches. Really.

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  2. This is awesome! I often wonder about things like that... like if I'm REALLY getting a deal or not. But I desperately struggle when it comes to math. Maybe it's the fact that I was an English major and have not taken a math class since my junior year in high school. Anyway, thank you for this entertaining post and for sharing your knowledge! Dang you, Whole Foods for being so dang good but tricking us into thinking you are helping us make smart financial decisions when it comes to our healthy food habits!

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