Thievery

Have you ever heard a phrase or watched someone do something and you thought to yourself 'I'm going to take that idea and make it my own.' (I guess that's the whole point of pinterest?) Well, something inside of me always convinced me I should have thought of that idea first, or made that witty comment first. That I should be original and impressive at all times. But sometimes I am just not - correction: always I am just not.

What I am?

I am an intellectual thief. I am a sinner who needs a Savior. I am the author of this blog. And I get recipe envy.

I am also very cheap.

If I can forgo spending (a sarcastically whopping!) $3 on Organic Soy Ginger sauce from Whole Foods and make my own at home. I'm all in. I took a photo of the ingredients as an act of plagiarism....eh-hem...I mean...inspiration. Yes - I was seeking to be inspired.

So here's a cost break-down to make from scratch. Please keep in mind I'm lazy and only did conversions that Google readily provided (like how many Tablespoons are in a pound of sugar. God bless those offbeat souls like myself that actually care about this stuff). Lets see the ingredients list.


Water (I omitted this to keep a thicker consistency)
Soy Sauce .50
Cane Sugar .15
White Vinegar .03
Ginger .05
Garlic .03
Soybean Oil (I omitted this)
Molasses (I used Honey from local bee farm) .15
Sesame Seed Oil .20
Red Pepper .02

I'm having an attention-span-of-a-gnat moment: I had to look up what percentage of organic ingredients were required to label a product 'Organic'. It turns out according to the USDA's National Organic Program that regulated labeling it reads:

Food products labeled "organic" must contain at least 95% organic ingredients with no synthetic growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, biotechnology, synthetic ingredients or irradiation used in production or processing.

Let me add a little tidbit of information, if my dewy, youthful and attractive blog audience will so kindly oblige (no I am NOT trying to butter you up. geesh people).

95% organic is overbearing and unnecessary in terms of health benefits. I am less concerned about white vinegar being organic than I am GMO soy beans and hybridized wheat.
Some interesting information I found on the interweb about wheat:

Wheat is also another major culprit of creating poorly functioning digestive system. Most of the wheat consumed today is hybridized and contains sodium azide (a known toxin). It also gets irradiated during the manufacturing process which means a lovely infusion of gamma rays with a side of peanut butter & jam. Wheat also contains gluten, and our bodies are physically incapable of breaking it down due to lack of the proper enzymes. Wheat also contains gliadin & glutenin, immunogenic anti-nutrients which can lead to an array of autoimmune diseases like celiac, rheumatoid arthritis, IBS, and much more. These little molecules increase intestinal permeability, resulting in systemic inflammation by the immune system.

There are some ingredients where conventional USDA standards will do just fine.
And now you can rest peaceful tonight,  dreaming of dancing inorganic bananas and floating conventionally grown avocado clouds. Your dream not mine. Weirdo.

Back to the task at hand. Let's tally it up. $1.13 to make homemade (25% organic). The quantity is about half the liquid of the store bought. Not a huge cost benefit. But I subtract $2 from the cost for the value added from a new experience, challenge -and bestly- one-upping Whole Foods by adding local honey (great if you have seasonal allergies!). So there we have it folks, I just made 87 cents.  Oh wait - I have to deduct for the trouble it took to calculate my cost more than three times.
I made 57 cents. Still Genius.