I think I’ve always wanted to write a post with that title.

As many of my friends — and especially my food-enthused colleages at Farmigo — are acutely aware, I’m a sandwich kind of guy.

What especially piqued the interest of my Farmigo crew, though, was the fact that I’d tend to eat the same exact sandwich for lunch every day of the week: Turkey, ham, swiss, hummus, with some week-to-week variation.

I don’t progressively benefit from eating the same meal several days in a row.[ref]This isn’t going On Fire we’re talking about here.[/ref] Rather, it’s the result of my own sandwich hacking: I figured out that I could cut down precipitously on sandwich-making process time if I made a week’s worth of sandwiches all at once as soon as I unpacked my groceries.[ref]Here’s Brian Regan who better articulates all the time I’m saving.[/ref]

Recently I took another critical look at my sandwich-making process, and as the post title states, I literally came upon the best thing since sliced bread.

Here it is:

The Tortilla. It’s AWESOME.

Here’s why:

1. Since I’m just going to roll everything up at the end, I can be even lazier about building my sandwich — I don’t need to fold oblong-shaped slices of turkey to fit my rectangular bread.
2. On a related, but subtly distinct note: Sandwiches prepared tortilla-style have walls. In the past I’ve never really invested in complications like tomatoes, which on a normal sandwich are all but guaranteed to slide around, fall out, or leave one really strange bite at the tail end. But now, an entire world of slippery supplements is possible. (Thanks for reminding me, Peter.)
3. I know exactly how many sandwiches I can make. Tortillas come in packs of 4, 6, 8 — you name it. I have no idea how many slices are in a loaf of bread. I can’t imagine there’s an industry standard (though at least the bread gods all seem to have agreed that there should be an even number). And I’m not about to sit there and count individual slices by looking through the plastic bag.
4. No crust. I’m over the hurdle of eating the crust on the individual slice of bread, but I still don’t like the crusty slices at the ends of the loaf. I throw them out, which makes me feel bad because it’s clearly wasteful. But at the same time, why should I subject myself to a clearly inferior — and inherently avoidable — sandwich experience on at least a weekly basis?
5. You know what the absolute worst part is about bread? It’s the crumbs. Crumbs which fall out of nowhere and spill everywhere. Crumbs which wind up spread all over the counter just densely enough to be a clear nuisance but not enough to really merit cleaning up. Crumbs which are magnetically attracted to the little cracks underneath the keys on your keyboard if you so much as think about taking a bite out of your sandwich and you’re standing anywhere in the same timezone as your computer. Tortillas? No crumbs.

Apparently, NASA feels the same way. I suppose they’ve been too busy playing with the dirt on Mars to clue the rest of the planet in on the fact that they knew the best thing since sliced bread — and have been using it for over 30 years.

Or maybe they just figured “The best thing since flour tortillas” doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily.