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

Antinatalism by Ken Coates - Buddha, Schopenhauer, Zapffe and Benatar

There is a book I have finished about antinatalism called Anti-Natalism: Rejectionist Philosophy from Buddhism to Benatar which I highly recommend people read as the Kindle version is available for purchase for only $4. It provides a very detailed and accessible explanation of what antinatalism is. It also talks about similar philosophies e.g. Buddhism.

Buddhism speaks about how life is suffering and that this can be overcome by going through a process to reach enlightenment. In contrast, Arthur Schopenhaur believes you should "deny the will to live" in order to reach this enlightenment and not suffer. But I am more included to the teachings of Peter Wessel Zapffe. Zapffe talks about how most people just use distraction etc to take their mind off existential dread but this is just delusion.

Ultimately life is suffering and to reduce suffering, we should stop children, as David Benatar suggests.