I am not unusual?

A few years ago, I figured out my lunch at work, and even when I am at home.  And I have been eating variations of that lunch ever since, as long as I am the one responsible for my own lunch.

I buy ciabatta bread, which even comes in a nice sandwich size at the local grocery store.  I grill both the halves.  Drizzle olive oil. Grind black pepper on it.

That's the basic.  The variations come from:
Cheese--Swiss or Pepperjack?
Greens--lettuce or mixed greens?
Add capers? Or olives?
A few fresh rings of onion?
How about pepperoncini?

And then the accompaniments.  Potato chips? Baby carrots? Orange? Apple? Banana?

Thus, while it might seem like my lunch is always a ciabatta sandwich, the reality is that the taste is different, every single time.

And it works.

Apparently I am not the only one who has a great time with variations of the same lunch combo.  And, hey, it is a good habit, given the variations and the well-roundedness of the meal:

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University and the author of several books about nutrition and the food industry, says the consequences of eating the same lunch every day depend on the contents of that lunch and of the day’s other meals. “If your daily lunch contains a variety of healthful foods,” she says, “relax and enjoy it.”
So there is nothing wrong with this habit. In fact, there are many things right with it.

That's what I say.

When people were not affluent, which means pretty much all through human existence, food would have been very similar day in and day out.  The more the affluence, the more the spread. (And, the human figure also started spreading!)

When I asked Krishnendu Ray, a food-studies scholar at NYU, about dietary variety, he said: “Newness or difference from the norm is a very urban, almost postmodern, quest. It is recent. It is class-based.” So, when accounting for the totality of human experience, it is the variety-seekers—not the same-lunchers—who are the unusual ones.

Makes sense to me.

But, I thought I was one of the unusual ones! ;)