16 Feb 2009  ::  Eat Fresh
Every Monday means I'm getting about eight hours of quality at the computer lab, which gets an over/under of 8 too many hours in the lab. On these days I usually don't plan ahead, which means I don't bring anything to eat, and I don't usually make 8+ without at least one square meal.

Unfortunately, this means dining in one of the establishments in the EMU, which range from cheap and crappy to overpriced and crappy, which quickly winnows the range of restaurants to Subway and Panda Express. It should be pointed out that Panda Express always makes me feel nauseated immediately after consumption and induces irregular bowel activity in the following twenty-four hours.

One would assume that this means hitting up Subway for a relatively healthy five dollar foot long, but they'd be wrong. See, I am pretty sure that every sandwich that Subway sells is the same sandwich. They all taste the same. Wheat bread tastes the same at the Italian, salami has the same sensations as the chicken and it might be the only place in the world where cheddar cheese is not significantly different from the pepper jack.

So I have to ask two questions- why would anyone eat there, and why doesn't Subway streamline their operations? Everyone must know that the sandwiches are a lot like eating manna for forty years straight, so Subway should make one generic bread and a generic filling that combines low calories, high fiber and protein and maybe a high value of vitamins and minerals. Then have a series of sauces, like bacon, lettuce and cheese sauce.

This is how it would happen if the world went my my proposed change:

Customer: I'd like a footlong.

Sandwich Artist: (Cuts open bread, crumbles some stuff of benign origins across one side.) Which flavors?

Customer: Cheese sauce, green onion spread and some bacon and turkey juice with light salt and pepper.

Sandwich Artist: Ranch? Teriyaki?

Customer: (Considering) A little ranch. I'm dieting.

I think this would cut back the time it takes to serve a customer, while lowering the amounts of goods that would need to be in stock without discernibly changing the taste of Subway's product.

First off, I remember the "good ol' days" when Subway was a much simpler place. You literally had only one bread option, three meat options, two cheese options, and then the foliage. The condiments were either oil, vinegar, and/or mayo. You got in, ordered, got out. That's the way I like it.

Now it's become a veritable cluster fuck of dizzying choices that make me walk away. Too many bread choices, too many obscure and questionable meat choices, plant life I have never heard of and am convinced is simply grown in some vat in the Subway laboratory, and cheese that is all stored together so that they share the same characteristics as each other and are probably grown in the same vat as the vegetables. It also turns out that the sandwiches are not as healthy for you as the company makes them out to be, depending on what you put on them. Better than McDonald's burgers? Yes, marginally. That jackass, Jared, was eating dry sandwiches with nothing but vegetables. Remember that the next time you think about the "healthy" food Subway serves. Anything that processed cannot be that healthy.

What you described above, moreover, is pretty much what you get from McDonald's or Jack in the Box or Carl's, Jr. I don't know about anyone else, but I like to know what's in my food and how it's made.

And now you know why they call the place Panda "Express".

Comment added on 17 Feb 2009 by Patrick

I think your mouth is broken.

But I'm curious as to why you don't eat at that weird place that isn't Planet Express or Eat What Hollywood Eats or whatever the hell it is. You know, that one with all the natural food. Eat there.

Comment added on 17 Feb 2009 by Liir

I like bread.

Comment added on 17 Feb 2009 by Emily

This is essentially the process already. They just pretend that its not what it is. But it is far from "food"

Comment added on 17 Feb 2009 by Keggerman