How to make a sandwich from scratch

[mouser]

This is from a youtube series called "How to Make Everything", it shows a guy spending 6 months and $1500 to make a sandwich from scratch (growing and harvesting vegetables and grains, making cheese, pickling cucumbers, butchering a chicken, etc.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URvWSsAgtJE

As someone who has done a fair amount of wood work, this hits home for me -- it's hard to justify making most things yourself -- the time and money dwarf what it would take to buy something new or used.  There is a lot to be said for learning the skill to make things yourself, but be prepared for a lot of inefficient work.

[Deozaan]

The video seemed like a nice teaser for the individual videos for each step. So I watched the episode on salt (so I could find out what happened at the airport!). Sadly, it was also really short and scant on the details of how to actually make salt, and it didn't go into any detail about what happened at the airport. Disappointing.

[MilesAhead]

I can appreciate the dude was going for humor.  But the premise dead ends at what is convenient.  For example he has a kitchen with pots pans and electric stove.  He doesn't make the stove, electricity, or the pots pans or kitchen.  He may as well call Jimmy Johns(there is one on Flagler Street in Miami but I am afraid to eat a sandwich from there since the ads never mention the food.  It must be real crap if all they can talk about is how fast they deliver the crap.)

[Edvard]

Jimmy John's is actually pretty good.  I'd take them over Subway any day, and I used to really like Subway.  Depending on your opinion of Subway, that may not be saying a whole lot. YMMV.

[Deozaan]

I can appreciate the dude was going for humor.  But the premise dead ends at what is convenient.

I didn't really see it as an attempt at humor. I saw it more as a way for us to get a more "real" sense of and appreciation for how good we have it, and where things really come from. I've heard that many kids these days (and some adults, too!) don't realize that food comes from crops/farms or animals. They think it is literally created the way they find it packaged in the grocery store.

Just a few years ago someone wrote a hatemail to a hunting TV show saying something to the effect of "Shame on you for killing animals! If you want meat, go buy it at the store so an animal doesn't have to die!"

That said, I also agree with you that in order to follow his logic of "I'm making everything from scratch myself" I found myself saying "You didn't make that boat. You didn't make that knife. You didn't make that oven. You didn't make those seeds. You didn't make that [whatever]" etc.

Jimmy John's is actually pretty good.  I'd take them over Subway any day, and I used to really like Subway.  Depending on your opinion of Subway, that may not be saying a whole lot. YMMV.

I had Jimmy Johns once. It was OK. I still prefer Subway.

[MilesAhead]

That said, I also agree with you that in order to follow his logic of "I'm making everything from scratch myself" I found myself saying "You didn't make that boat. You didn't make that knife. You didn't make that oven. You didn't make those seeds. You didn't make that [whatever]" etc.

It used to seem like every time I told someone I wrote a program they would pick out some eye candy fature and say "did you create this?" and as soon as I told that I used a library, API call or somebody's function they would say "so it's not original then."  I felt like saying to them "Come back and talk to me when you invent your own spoken language.  Then you will have something original to say."  Henry Ford was creative because he stuck a gasoline engine on the buggy cheap enough so that you could be a bank teller and buy one, not just the bank president.  He didn't invent the wheel and axle. 

I had Jimmy Johns once. It was OK. I still prefer Subway.

I probably told this a few times on here already.  But when I got my first job as a mechanic, the next street over was a pizza/sub shop.  I used to zip over when I could get an extra few minutes for lunch. It was a one man operation.  The guy did not believe in prepping the food.  When I ordered a Steak & Egg sub he put the steak strips on the grill and scrambled fresh eggs in front of me.  Then to toast it he put the sub in the pizza oven.  I had to wait about 10 minutes to get it, but it was worth it.  The guy would even encourage me to eat the sub there.  I asked why.  He said "because I enjoy seeing someone really enjoy eating what I cook."  That spoiled me.  No chain of sub shops can even echo the taste and quality of that shop.