/ Mark Frauenfelder / 12:39 pm Fri Oct 2, 2009

Calculate how much it costs to make a sandwich at home

Sandwich-Calculator

Rob Cockerham says: "I made a sandwich calculator which will allow people to choose bread, cheese and other sandwich toppings and find out how much it will cost to put it together at home."

Previously:

27

  2. This thing lacks most of the specifics I would use to make a sandwich with. No spicy mustard? No pumpernickel bread? What kind of a communist plot is behind this???

  3. The silly part of this, is that you can’t buy 1 slice of lettuce or cheese or 1 squirt of mayo. You can buy a head of lettuce, and end of only making 4 sandwiches and throwing away the rest.

  5. Where’s the head cheese and beef tongue?

    He did leave off the onions. Which may or may not be a bad thing.

  6. But does it calculate in the cost of spoiled food? I think a PB&J costs a little more than 64 cents if you calculate the part of the loaf of bread that goes moldy before you get to it.

  7. Man, after using the calcutron to come up with the price, I am really looking forward to my Wonder Bread, mayo, yellow mustard, Butter, Ketchup, Sprout, Bacon, Tomato, Lettuce, Pickle, Olive, Egg, Peanut Butter, Jelly, Avocado, Kraft Single, and Beef Bologna Sandwich!

    If that doesn’t say good eatin’ for $3.02, I don’t know what does!

  8. @3 @6
    I’m glad yall mentioned spoiled produce. I harbor a small, but significant amount of guilt over spoiled produce. I live alone, and usually end up throwing away 3/4 of the produce I buy.

    I can’t buy 1 or 2 carrots. I can’t buy 1/2 a head of lettuce.

    I try to freeze what can be used to make veggie broth, and that helps– but I haven’t found a way to prevent some of this food waste.

    Some weeks I buy none at all, because I will feel the pressure to cook it as fast as I can. But then I’m not getting my green things.

    Any ideas?

  10. I’m with you on the wasted food thing… nothing is more difficult than trying to cook for one… I wind up spending $40 and have all kinds of leftover ingredients… most of which I can never get to in time.

  11. You can buy fairly small bags of processed lettuce. If you eat big salads you’ll get three servings out of them. Unless you eat out night after night you’ll finish off the bag before it goes bad.

  12. When it comes to getting the most out of your produce, especially if there is just one of you, I go by a very simple formula:

    Eat what you can
    Freeze what you can’t eat
    Pickle what you can’t freeze
    Compost what you can’t pickle, and grow more veg

  14. Wow, expensive sandwich. If you buy fairly large containers and store brands, you can get similar quality for I’m guessing half the price.

    When an 18 oz. bottle of pickle slices costs $1.99, you’ll only spend a nickle on the actual slices for your sandwich!

  16. I wish composting was an option for me. No space for a garden or compost pile. I’ve looked into the kitchen composters; they are expensive!!

  18. Almost regardless of the ingredients selected, I am decidedly not interested in the sandwich. Kraft singles? Wonder bread? People, eat better!

  19. There are some lessons here:

    Fresh food is expensive in small quantities, cheap in large. Crap food scales better, but is crap.

    People would be best served, in aggregate, by a ‘sandwich collective’ For $50/year for most, the entire society (homeless all the way to rich) could have 1 yummy fresh made-to-order sandwich every day!

    This is the unfulfilled promise of both capitalism and socialism.

  20. I heard this same concept discussed on Marketplace a few months ago as a springboard into the topic of lost opportunity in business. They wisely pointed out that if you bill your time at 75 bucks an hour, it’s never worth it to make a sandwich.

  21. As for waste, cook four times as much and freeze it! As for expensive kitchen composting, those bins you buy can be recreated using very cheap materials (wasn’t this blog co-founded by a Maker? COME ON PEOPLE!). And finally, if you want to buy less produce so less goes bad, try the farmer’s market. Most booths sell by the pound, and if not, the owner is right there. Ask her. She’ll probably let you take one carrot out of the bunch and charge you differently if you ask nice.

  22. @Anonimouse:

    Many grocery stores these days have bins of bulk prewashed greens (not iceberg lettuce — too wet maybe? but spinach, radicchio, mixed, etc.) in the produce section, so you can put as much or as little as you want into one of those plastic bags.

    There are also small “single-serving” packets of certain fresh herbs (chives, mint, basil.) Usually near the mushrooms for whatever reason.

  23. Cook for one?! Man, I want to cook for you Happy Mutants SOOOOOO BAD!!!! (er..good?) Meet people who like the same type of food as you and meal swap! Odd days My House, even days Your house. OR Prime Number days your house ;D

    In a way, This makes me sad. My Abuelita always said “Food is how you show love!”; and maybe the cost of just making sandwiches for one is more than monetary, it taxes the soul.
    -Suds

  24. I was a grocer for many years- more than half of all produce is thrown out- about 10% before it is sold- and the other 40% by the end user.

    Cheers

  25. @Anonimouse/Americans
    Is it really not possible to buy just 2 carrots in an American shop? It’s not just possible, but normal to be able to buy as few or as many carrots as you want in a UK shop (including supermarkets). Most fruit and vegetables are displayed in crates, you buy as much as you want (it’s weighed when you pay). Sometimes stuff is available packed in little boxes, but it’s more expensive.

    I cook just for myself. The only way stuff goes bad is if I forget to cook it and eat out for several consecutive days.

  26. @23

    Unfortunately, US supermarkets, in an attempt to make you buy a certain minimum amount of produce have taken to bundling things up and removing smaller portions from the produce section.

    For instance, I can no longer buy individual carrots at the Jewel I go to in Chicago, they just sell them in bunches of 10.

    Likewise, you can’t buy a small bunch of scallions, but only the super expensive large bundle that comes in its own resealable plastic bag.

    This, coupled with the grocery store shrink ray has increased our home grocery bill by upwards of 30% or more in the past year alone. Really hate food shopping these days…

  27. @Anonimouse:

    This doesn’t help with sandwiches, and I’m in Canada and our grocery stores sell loose vegetables so we’re obviously in a different situation here…

    But for dinners consider frozen veg instead of fresh. Not as awesome as fresh veg, and a little more expensive, but! If you’re habitually having half your veg going off, the higher initial cost and less waste suggests you get more actual value out of the frozen.

    For sandwiches, my mother used to make sandwiches in batches for the week and freeze them. Move one from the freezer to the fridge the night before you need it to let it defrost gently.

    This technique requires careful selection of ingredients – lettuce is right out of course because it turns to goo with freezing, I think celery is out too.

    If you work outside of the house, consider finding another singleton at your workplace and forming a sandwich co-op? Sort of like car-pooling, but instead “veggie-pooling”. Alternate sandwich responsibility from week to week.

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