Gluten (Seitan) is an Underappreciated Cheap and Tasty Plant Protein

With the cost of living pressures affecting many, a cheap protein source that is underappreciated is gluten, which for many seems to cause fear and anxiety. However, gluten is safe for most people unless they have celiac disease.

Most people know about gluten from bread, but pure gluten has been used for a long time as part of Chinese cuisine. Chinese Buddhist monks "invented" gluten (also known as kao fu or seitan) back in the 6th century CE as part of the Tang dynasty. The gluten was obtained by the "wash method" which involved mixing wheat flour with water and then continuously kneading it to remove the carbs, leaving behind virtually pure protein. If you do not have time to knead flour, it's much faster to buy gluten from the store. I purchased mine from a local Asian store for AUD 2.50 (USD 1.68) for 300 grams.

Some argue that gluten is an incomplete protein because it has low levels of lysine. However, this is not a concern because you can simply eat other protein sources that are high in lysine such as soy or beans. In my opinion, calling gluten incomplete is unfair because practically all food is incomplete in some way e.g. "complete proteins" such as soy or eggs have low levels of vitamin C, but this does not mean they are inferior. It just means that if you eat soy or eggs you should also eat something else to get vitamin C such as oranges. The same logic applies to gluten. 

Gluten is remarkably simple to prepare. You can prepare them e.g. in an air fryer if you are in a rush, but one way I like to prepare gluten is by pan frying them. Firstly you should cut the gluten into smaller blocks. I recommend using a cast-iron pan to avoid PFAS contamination concerns in non-stick pans. Add avocado oil into the pan and then fry the gluten chunks in the oil You will notice that it turns a golden brown colour.

A block of gluten fried in avocado oil

The golden brown colour of gluten signifies it is ready. Once it is golden brown, I usually stop frying as one of the advantages of gluten is that it doesn't matter if it is undercooked, that is, there are no pathogen risks with undercooked gluten. It is better to undercook gluten rather than overcook it.

Taste is subjective, but gluten has a chewy texture that I like, but on its own gluten is tasteless, so in this case I added rice seasoning to add flavour.

Gluten with rice seasoning

The Best Way to Survive and Thrive During Inflation and Interest Rate Rises is to Live Like a Loser

I am a single man in his late thirties and I live with my parents. However, while many of my peers are fretting over the recent cost of living increases as well as increases in interest rates, I am not worried at all. I currently have a net worth of about A$1.5 million (about US$1.04 million) mostly in ETFs and crypto. I am also very frugal. I can live off about $10k to $20k per year easily.

When most people see that I live with my parents and don't own a house, they think I am a loser, but living like a loser provides more economic security because your expenses are low. If I lose my job, I can easily only spend about $20k per year, and given I have a net worth of $1.5 million, I can live off my investments forever as my withdrawal rate is 1.3% which is highly conservative.

I pay a small rent to my parents, but even if I did not live with my parents (e.g. they force me out of the house) then I can simply live in a sharehouse, and even if I didn't want to live in a sharehouse, I could easily live overseas e.g. in Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe where there is a low cost of living. Being minimalist as well as being flexible and mobile all help in increasing your resilience. 

Buying a house does not interest me. It's great to have a good house that is good quality and is fully paid off. This I think can provide economic security. My parents own a fully paid off house, and it provides them with economic stability as they don't need to pay rent, and given I live with them, I benefit from that as well. However, houses were very cheap many decades ago whereas now they are significantly more expensive. If you wanted a fully paid off house, the question is how long will it take to achieve this and what risks will you expose yourself to along the journey? Paradise is great but if the path to paradise is paved with landmines, is it worth trying to get to paradise?

For one, saving for a deposit can take a long time, and by the time you save up for a deposit and then pay off the entire mortgage, chances are you will be dead, so the security of a paid off house may never come or come way too late. In the meantime while you pay off the mortgage you are exposed to the massive risk of sudden interest rate spikes. 

So in my opinion, it is not worth the stress to buy a house. Simply invest in ETFs and crypto and then live a minimalist lifestyle. Economic security is about maximising your net worth and minimising your ongoing expenses. Once you can live off less than 4% of your net worth, this is when you start to become very financially secure.

More Immigration can Increase Housing Affordability

The housing affordability crisis is a global problem that is affecting many countries. The crisis is caused by a number of factors, including low interest rates, rising house prices, lack of supply, and investor demand. The crisis has a number of negative consequences, including homelessness, inequality, and economic growth. There are a number of things that can be done to address the crisis, including raising interest rates, building more housing, and providing more affordable housing.

However, there are many who believe that immigrants cause problems with housing affordability by increasing the demand for housing.

However, if there is an increase in demand for housing due to immigration or natural births, there can be no price impact if there is enough supply to keep up with demand. This involves increasing density as well as increasing urban growth boundaries. It is not hard to do this. Government just need to legislate it. Furthermore, there are many tax policies that can be amended to make housing more affordable. All that is needed is amendments to legislation. Amendments to legislation will occur if governments make the change. The government will make the change if they believe the people will support it and vote for it.

This is the main barrier to housing affordability. The reality is that many voters want house prices to increase, especially in countries where most people own homes e.g. Australia. A good case study is the Australian 2019 election when Bill Shorten lost due to policy suggestions to remove negative gearing, which is a tax break primarily exploited by property investors. Overall this would have a modest effect on house prices because housing affordability is caused by many other policies other than negative gearing. However, the results of this election show that it is not immigrants that are making housing less affordable. It is the Australian people. One third of Australians own their own home outright, one third own it with a mortgage, and one third are renters. Renters are outnumbered.

If immigration were increased, it is highly likely they will become renters. If they are then given citizenship then they will be able to vote. If we increased immigration such that a very large number become citizens who rent, this can push the number of renters to over 50% thereby giving renters a majority which allows policies that promote housing affordability to be progressed. However as migrants and young Australians transition from renters to owners, they will likely vote to make housing less affordability, and so immigration must be increased significantly in a short period of time in order to boost the numbers of the renter voting bloc. Once immigrants become Australian home owners then it is likely they will vote like Australian home owners, so there need to be a sudden and steep increase in immigration.

Stop Having Kids Billboard in El Paso, Texas

It is really positive seeing videos of the Stop Having Kids billboard in El Paso, Texas. Hopefully those who drive by will be reminded of antinatalism and the benefits of not having kids. This was something that I contributed to and I hope to contribute financially to more initiatives like this.

Financial Independence via a Childfree Lifestyle

Something I find unusual is that many people are horrified by the idea of achieving financial independence by not having kids, even though not having a child will save you hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars over your life.

Instead, when most people give financial advice, they focus on little expenses such as skipping Starbucks, Netflix, or avocado toast. Anyone who drinks lattes, plays video games, etc are usually accused of wasting money on these activities. However, if someone doesn't have kids, they are spending significantly more money, yet such activities are not deemed wasteful.

Work | Buy | Consume | Reproduce | Die

Bad Days at Work that Remind Me Why I Must Retire Early

Work was terrible today. Over the weekend I was meant to work on a report because I had been putting it off for so long. However, I didn't manage to do any work on the weekend, so I dedicated today to finishing this report, and I found myself working on it the whole day. Even at the end of today, I still haven't finished this report. I will have to continue it tomorrow.

During the day, I had to juggle other work as well. I also had angry or passive aggressive people calling me to chase for things that I needed to get from others, so juggling all these things just made me feel weary and tired. Because it was Monday, I was feeling tired from recovering from sleeping in during the weekend, and to top it off, today was an extremely hot and humid day, even at night time. I had two fans on at the same time on my desk. There is an air conditioner outside my room,  but if I open the door then there is too much noise from outside.

It's days like these when I seriously think about early retirement. Every now and then a day like this pops around. Days like these have been popping up ever since the beginning of my career, and it's one of the reasons why I am so obsessed about early retirement. I need to give myself the option to retire early because I don't want to be a wage slave for life. That is not an option.

I also hate my job. I know some people love their job, and it is great for them if they do. However, I hate my job. My job is tolerable, but it's not something I enjoy. 

Anyway, today I realised that perhaps I will need to pare down my ambitions. Perhaps I need to accept retiring with less so that I can retire sooner. Alternatively, I can work for longer and retire more comfortably later. But perhaps I don't have it in me to work too long. I feel drained now. I feel stressed. Work is just too much for me. I hate it, and I am not going to pretend I love my job.

Some people say that I should move to a different job and do something else, such as something more related to my university degree, or doing more quantitative or technical work, or perhaps work in a non-profit. But the problem with these ideas is that I will need to somehow get into these jobs. I don't have any experience in these areas and I would need to go to interview after interview, and even if I am successful and get the new job, who is to say I won't hate it there because I am overwhelmed by work, or perhaps the manager turns out to be a bully? The more I look at it, the more I realise that the solution is not to find good work but to have a plan to end up not working at all. There is something about having money dangled in front of you that destroys your soul.