What making a sandwich from scratch has taught me about the modern world

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Today the modern world is a fascinating study in how much specialization it takes to produce a single commodity, with complex supply chains built to make everything as cheaply as possible. Take a sandwich: from the farmer who grows the wheat, to the person who milks the cow and makes the cheese, to the butcher, transporters, processors, packagers, and grocery clerks, easily a hundred people contribute to what ends up in your hands. Yet all of this happens behind the scenes, leaving us increasingly detached from what it actually takes to produce anything we use.

This detachment from even the basic food we eat is what inspired me to try a seemingly simple task: make a sandwich entirely from scratch. Ten years ago, I went viral with this concept because it revealed how complex “simple” really is when you do every step yourself. In the decade since, I’ve used this process on my YouTube channel How To Make Everything to explore and understand the unseen complexity behind everyday items, an experience that has completely changed my understanding of the world. There is a lost art to doing things the hard way, not always choosing the most efficient route. I think it’s something everyone should incorporate into their lives in some small way.

The unintended side effects of progress

One of the big focuses of my channel is the Industrial Revolution and the impact it had on detaching us from the goods we use. Even a few hundred years ago, most people worked in agriculture (90 per cent in the U.S. compared to about 12 per cent today), directly contributing to the food and products they consumed. But since the Stone Age, humanity has always been inventing and adopting the next technology to make work more efficient. The Industrial Revolution brought an explosion of new technologies, powered by the steam engine, and sparked one of the biggest shifts in production and in the average person’s relationship to it. From the Spinning Jenny and cotton gin to the railroad and steamboat, production became vastly more efficient, and mass quantities of goods became possible. Rather than being a jack of all trades, people could focus on one specialized part of the supply chain. This created a highly efficient system, increased wealth, and generally improved quality of life for most people.

Yet, as I’ve found with nearly every groundbreaking technology I’ve covered, innovations that can change the world for the better often bring unintended negative consequences. The downside of efficiency paired with detachment from the process is that we now live in a world obsessed with producing everything as cheaply as possible, an economy that thrives on single-use goods and planned obsolescence. Use it once, throw it away.

«There is a lost art to doing things the hard way, not always choosing the most efficient route.»

This has been the foundation of my YouTube journey: stepping outside the modern world of mass production to try making items myself. Over the past decade, I’ve attempted everything from food to textiles, from books to eyeglasses. The results are slow, inefficient, and rarely of comparable quality; but, as with many things in life, it’s not about the destination; it’s about the process. Each project forces me to explore something I’d never truly considered before. Take chocolate: before starting that project, I had no idea it came from the fruit of the cacao tree or that it required fermenting, drying, and roasting before becoming anything close to what we recognize as chocolate. Was my homemade chocolate the best I ever tasted? Definitely not. But it was the most satisfying, because I understood every step, and had done them all myself.

A completely different satisfaction

Today, the world is more efficient than ever, competing globally to offer a supply of ready-made goods unimaginable to past generations. In a world where we only see and judge the final result, my projects can be dismissed as wastes of time and energy, producing inferior products with no practical purpose. But I aim to shift that perspective: not to focus solely on the end result, but on the skills learned along the way, the humility of failing the first time (and the second, and the third) until you finally start to get good.

I’m not trying to upend industrial production or convince people to stop buying things. My work is about offering a counterbalance. As fun and convenient as it is to click “order now” and have something arrive at your door, there’s a completely different satisfaction in bypassing the supply chain and making it yourself.

Since my first sandwich project, I’ve continued to garden and grow my own food (and occasionally textiles). Economically, it makes no sense. Each year I spend days adding compost, tilling, planting, weeding, and paying the water bill, only to harvest a modest yield of tomatoes, broccoli, and other crops. Even in a great year, my tomatoes cost two to five times as much as store-bought. But that’s never the point. The point is the journey, remaining connected to the process and learning how to get better and better at that. Most of my food still comes from the store, but I take pride in participating in its production, even in this small way.

Maintaining the skills of the past

Much like the world was transformed by the Industrial Revolution, we now stand on the cusp of another shift, with technologies like 3D printing, CNC (computer numerical control) machining, and AI becoming increasingly affordable and accessible. These tools allow professional-quality products to be created with far less specialized knowledge or skill. Today, you can download a preset, or have an AI design one for you, and 3D print or machine it at home, bypassing decades of programming, modeling, and machining experience. But with that convenience comes a risk: “making it yourself” could soon be as detached from the actual process as pressing a button to buy something online. Our understanding of how things are made may fade entirely, with machines filling in the gaps.

As with every major technological shift, backlash and resistance are already forming against AI and other emerging tools. In the 19th century, a similar movement arose in response to the Industrial Revolution: the Luddites. Fearing its impact on their livelihoods and way of life, they resisted change, sometimes going so far as to attack and destroy machines. Ultimately, their efforts failed, and industrialization pressed on, leaving many unemployed with obsolete skills. Today, they are often portrayed as backward and resistant to progress, cited as a cautionary tale against hesitating in the face of new technology. Yet many of their concerns were legitimate, and then as now, there is much worth preserving as we move forward. By all means, embrace new technology when speed and efficiency matter, but it’s equally important to maintain the soon-to-be-forgotten skills of the past. A CNC machine can produce a knife quickly and precisely, but shaping metal by hand with a hammer and anvil is a timeless skill worth keeping alive.

We can’t, and shouldn’t, turn back the clock on efficiency, innovation, and the global cooperation that lets us enjoy comforts once unimaginable. But we can choose to step away from that system now and then, to try our hand at the slow, imperfect process of making something from scratch. The more we experience the hard way, the more we appreciate the easy way; the more we understand the old skills, the more we can admire the achievements of the present. In a world of instant delivery and flawless mass production, there is quiet satisfaction in shaping a knife on an anvil, kneading bread by hand, or growing a tomato from seed. Not to replace what the modern economy gives us, but to deepen our gratitude for it. By daring to fail, learn, and try again, we can keep the skills of the past alive while fully embracing the conveniences of the present. And maybe, in the process, we can make something worth savoring…even if it isn’t the greatest sandwich ever.