SUMMARY

Going a week without sandwiches was not at all difficult. Going a week without bread was slightly more so, but not too hard. Going a week without anything even remotely bread-like was tough, particularly for someone who snacks as much as I do. Please let me remind you at this point that not all my snacking is because I have a sweet tooth or a craving for something; it’s because my IBS is best kept under control by eating something approximately every three hours.

What was wonderful about this past week was realising how many options I have. These alternatives to sandwiches and bread don’t even need to be expensive or time-consuming to make. Yes, the shopping for this week cost a bit more than it normally would, but that’s because I had to buy things I don’t usually keep at home. You know, everything is geared towards those daily sandwiches, and when suddenly they’re off the menu and you have to get inventive, you need to buy those replacements.

Some of my favourites this week were strawberries, stuffed tomatoes and lettuce wraps, none of which took long to make, cost a lot or were particularly unhealthy. I’m also happy to report that my IBS was well under control this week, and I confess that I was a little worried about it to begin with. Many IBS patients need more fibre in their diet, and I wasn’t sure if I would get enough from fruit and vegetables alone without bread, but I had more fruit and veg than I probably normally would, and I had cereal and porridge instead. This is certainly something to remember in the future.

Come Friday morning, I had my first slices of bread in a week. It was wholegrain toast, and it was nice, but I can’t claim to have missed it in the seven days I was off bread. While I’m not going to swear off bread, biscuits and pizza completely in the future, I feel I am much better equipped in my battle against sandwiches.

THE ANTI-SANDWICH EXPERIMENT - an introduction

I just want to make a few things clear to begin with. I’m not about to start blogging, and I’m definitely not about to start blogging about food. Plenty of people already do that, and they do it much better than I could. I also can’t see my friends, readers and followers interested in a food blog by yours truly. 

I do, however, have to eat every day, in fact several times a day, like the rest of the human population. The western world in particular seems to be obsessed with sandwiches. Let’s face it: we have sandwiches for breakfast, for lunch and even for dinner. If you’re on the go or in a hurry, you’ll tell your friends or workmates that you’ll just grab a quick sandwich. 

All of this is fine. What I have problem with is having a sandwich every single day, sometimes more than once a day, because it’s the easiest, quickest, cheapest or only option. It really is. I often travel with my sister, who is a coeliac, and for her, grabbing a quick sandwich is almost never an option because she can’t have those ordinary sandwiches sold at every petrol station containing such lovely fillings as ham cheese, chicken and stuffing or cheese ploughman’s. The thing is, because I can eat sandwiches, I feel like I should eat them when I'm travelling. 

After 36 years on this earth, I must have had hundreds if not thousands of sandwiches. I’m sick of them. It’s time to do something about it. I have looked up alternatives to sandwiches, and they are still very bread based. I don’t really care if I put the same stuff between two slices of bread or inside a wrap; it’s more or less the same thing. 

I’m not saying that I have a problem with sandwiches in particular. I love pizza, but if I had to eat pizza every single day of my life, I’d get pretty sick of that too. Likewise, I enjoy Chinese food and Mexican food, but I don’t want to eat them all the time either. Variety is the spice of life.  

For the next week, I’m going to go breadless. I will have no bread products or nothing resembling bread. That includes pizza, biscuits, pastries, buns and bread rolls - you get the idea. There are no hard and fast rules in this, but if it contains flour, some raising against and has been baked, I probably won’t eat it during the week. 

I'm not doing this for health reasons or as a diet. I have no special dietary requirements. I have no food allergies or intolerances. I’m not vegan or vegetarian, and I mostly eat anything and everything. Eating is just something that I get on with. The only factor that limits my eating is my irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which is fairly easy to live with, if occasionally a pain in the bowels. The main thing with my IBS is to eat regularly, so I snack a lot and try to eat something approximately every three hours. 

This week happens to be one where I’m primarily at home and by myself while my partner – a fierce defender of sandwiches – is away. This gives me the freedom to experiment with meals that aren’t sandwiches. I’m sure there will be lots of salads – at the end of the day, a sandwich without bread is a salad, isn’t it? – but I’ll try to mix it up. I want to find those alternatives so that after this experiment, I will be in a better position to avoid sandwiches. 

I will keep track right here of what I eat every day so that anybody else interested in giving up on or reducing the number of sandwiches can get some ideas. 

For all you sandwich lovers out there – do not be insulted. There is still a place for sandwiches in this world. It’s just not on my plate – not every single day. 

Finally, if anybody out there is in a band that’s still looking for a name, I think The Anti-Sandwich Experiment would be a pretty cool name. Just let me know when you’re playing at a venue near me…