Mark Richt’s 10-bite sandwich-eating method is the food hack of the summer

Too much of the time, our society is focused on what constitutes a sandwich instead of how to best enjoy a sandwich. Mark Richt has brought the right issue to the forefront.

It’s ACC Media Days weekend in North Carolina, and the Miami head football coach offered up this edgy but innovative method for eating sandwiches:

Richt’s 10-bite approach can teach us a lot about how to eat efficiently.

Let’s start with a premise about sandwiches: They are messy. Even if you’re eating the tidiest sandwich possible (a ham-and-cheese or even a straight-up grilled cheese), sandwiches don’t stay tidy. Biting into their edges causes little crumbs to fall off and land on your lap, even if you’re working diligently on a sandwich-to-mouth transfer.

It seems to me that a 10-bite method could solve some of those problems or at least cut into them. The way Richt gets after his sandwich encourages symmetry. He’s regimented because, sometimes, your food needs order imposed upon it.

The way it works: You cut the sandwich in half diagonally. You nibble on the corners of either half first, and that probably acts as a sort of warmup.

Then you’re in position to optimally experience the climactic moment: bite 3, which Richt calls the “filet of the sandwich.” You get to chomp into that nice, central piece of the sandwich without having to worry about any of its outer crust. That moment in the very middle of the sandwich is one of the high points of the human experience.

This is just me speculating now, but it seems that this approach should also cut down on collateral crumbs landing on you. That’s just the science.

Eating a sandwich in exactly 10 bites, as long as you’re working off a standard, square piece of bread, is good practice in general. It’s not too many or too few, and you get to standardize your time of consumption down to a precise block. If you work in a busy job, that kind of time management is really important.

If Richt can get Miami’s offense to be as efficient as his sandwich-eating paradigm, the Hurricanes are due for a long run of ACC Coastal championships.