Five reasons why seitan, also called “wheat meat” or vital wheat gluten is an unhealthy food that harms gut health. Consumers should be on the lookout for this stealth ingredient in sprouted bread and other “health” foods.
It never ceases to amaze me how manufacturers so brazenly play bait and switch with the food labels for their products. The latest ingredient game that educated consumers need to know about is seitan.
This is especially true for those who may be unknowingly eating it in the form of sprouted bread such as the very popular brand Ezekiel.
Seitan is “Wheat Meat”
In a nutshell, seitan is wheat meat. Wheat meat? Yes, people actually call it that! How can plant food be “meat”, you might ask? Let’s take an in-depth look at this immensely popular food ingredient with the groovy name.
So, what is this stuff? Seitan goes by many names that are all essentially the same thing:
- wheat meat
- vital wheat protein
- textured wheat protein
- wheat gluten
- organic wheat gluten
- vital gluten
- vital wheat gluten
It seems food manufacturers are springboarding off the immense success of hiding MSG in processed foods using dozens of aliases to confuse the consumer.
Masterful Marketing of a NonFood
You can see why branding gluten as seitan makes sense. It sounds rather hip, cool, whole, and healthy.
If you say “vital wheat protein” as you serve dinner, your guests may flee.
But if you say, “oh, this is just a little dish of seitan,” well, you are going to be the star!
This is especially slick marketing since gluten-containing grains aren’t all that in demand these days. Especially with the well-deserved reputation of toxic conventional wheat.
But seitan is anything but hip, cool, whole, or healthy.
Unfortunately, this ingredient is becoming more popular, especially among vegans and vegetarians who have to search high and low for sufficient dietary protein. This is especially true for plant-based diet fans who are allergic to soy. (1)
Those who espouse traditional diets are also eating it, mostly unknowingly. More on this below.
The Origins of Seitan
The Japanese word seitan is pronounced, “say-tan”.
Mmmm. Sounds a lot like the Western word “satan”.
Freudian slip on the part of manufacturers? You be the judge after reading this exposé.
The word was coined in 1961 by George Ohsawa, an advocate of the macrobiotic diet (a diet associated with extreme Vitamin D deficiency).
In 1962, wheat gluten sold as “seitan” began in Japan pioneered by Marushima Shoyu K.K.
It was introduced to the West in 1969 by the American company Erewhon.
History of Wheat Gluten as a Protein Source
Where and when did this stuff start? Interestingly, a rather long time ago, as early as the 6th century in China.
What was the main motivation? Religious groups, especially Buddhists, seeking to avoid meat were searching for a protein option to put on the table that was in line with their beliefs.
Besides being a non-meat source of protein, seitan’s other main attraction is its texture. Most meat substitutes don’t have a “meaty” texture at all. But seitan does.
Tofu, tempeh, and textured vegetable (soy) protein all make at best acceptable or endurable meat substitutes.
But seitan is different from these. It makes a rather good meat substitute, and thus, makes it all the more appealing to the unsuspecting masses.
Seitan is currently the most favored form for “mock meats.”
It is so good at being fake meat that when you look at pictures of foods made from good quality seitan, you may be hard-pressed to tell which are made from wheat and which are made from real meat. (2)
5 Reasons Seitan “Wheat Meat” is Unhealthy
So, we now know what it is, but is it good? First, seitan is basically pure wheat gluten.
For anyone with gluten/wheat issues, seitan is the satan of all foods.
It represents the purest and most potent form of gluten for those who are sensitive.
I wonder if its growing popularity at certain restaurants (especially vegan, vegetarian, and Asian) raises significant issues or problems with possible cross-contamination for those who are sensitive or allergic to gluten?
Second, this stuff is highly processed with a capital “P”. You can’t just isolate the gluten fraction of wheat with ease.
This processing also means many brands of seitan contain lots of other stuff, like very large amounts of added sodium, MSG, and other food additives.
Third, while it is high in protein, it is an incomplete and unbalanced source of this important macronutrient.
Seitan is very low in lysine and ultimately considered a source of low-quality protein even by the most forgiving of critics.
Being low in this amino acid is especially problematic and concerning if you are eating seitan as your primary source of protein with few other protein-rich foods in your diet. (3)
Fourth, if it is made from conventional wheat, it thus has been exposed to all the pesticides, herbicides, and other Big Ag chemicals that modern wheat production depends on.
Organic seitan would be better in this regard, but that doesn’t undo the issues listed above.
Finally, seitan made Shape magazine’s list of the top seven foods even nutritionists won’t eat. (4)
Wow, if nutritionists won’t eat this stuff most who still think a frankenfood like margarine is healthy, that is saying something!
No wonder food manufacturers are so desperate to hide its presence on the label using a myriad of other names!
Vital Wheat Gluten: Where it Hides in Your Food
In closing, let’s consider who is consuming this low-quality wheat by-product whether consciously or unwittingly.
A lot of bread makers use seitan even health food store brands. Many modern breads add additional “vital gluten” to improve the rise, texture, and elasticity of the bread.
It also gives the loaf integrity while shipping long distances and for stacking in warehouses.
Watch out for Sprouted Breads!
This is especially true, and maddeningly so, for expensive sprouted bread.
The popular brand Food For Life’s Ezekiel bread is guilty of this bait and switch perhaps more than any other commercial bread. (5)
Ezekiel markets its bread as “healthier” by using sprouted flour (which breaks down gluten to make it more digestible), charges an arm and a leg for a loaf, and then turns around and adds back the wheat gluten.
Talk about one step forward and three steps back!
The scam is reminiscent of the fake sourdough bread that seems to be everywhere too.
Watch out for “vital wheat gluten”, “organic wheat gluten”, or anything “gluten” in the ingredients of “healthy” bread choices.
If you are looking for a REAL sprouted loaf with NO wheat gluten, I recommend this sprouted loaf from a family bakery that will ship to your door.
Ultimately, wheat gluten as a food ingredient should have no appeal, organic or not, to consumers educated about traditional foods and gut health.
Reading food labels very closely is necessary to avoid it as it is increasingly appearing in pseudo-traditional foods that those in the health food community think are the real thing and are bringing into their homes.
(1) What is Seitan?
(2) What the Heck is Seitan, Really?
(3) Seitan vs Meat
(4) 7 Foods a Nutritionist Would Never Eat
(5) Food for Life (Ezekiel Bread) Containing Wheat Gluten
Thanks for this article! I have been going back and forth for a while now on the organic sprouted breads at the store because I suspected that the added gluten was bad yet they seem “healthy”. Thanks for clearing that up for me- I’ll make the extra effort to get the delicious sourdough einkorn bread at the farmers market!
The farmer’s market sourdough einkorn sounds perfect! Many people have this type of wonderful local option available instead of the industrialized “traditional” breads like Ezekiel which should be avoided.
Seitan is not used in bread or baking. It is a meat substitute made from gluten, the old-fashioned way by rinsing a whole wheat dough in alternate cold and hot water ‘baths’, to extract the gluten and to rinse off the bran. More ‘modern’ recipes use vital wheat gluten. I have made it by both methods, and have been making it almost 40 years.
Vital wheat gluten is what you meant as the ‘bad guy’ here. It is often used as a dough enhancer in yeast raised doughs.
I am disappointed with the glaring error in this article.
Here’s a definition for seitan: thebuddhistchef.com/recipe/seitan/
&
vegetariantimes.com/recipes/homemade-seitan
I’m not sure you understand that vital wheat gluten is just concentrated gluten isolated from the bran just as you describe. It is nearly indigestible for most people and extremely poor quality protein. Making it at home changes nothing except that you will avoid all the sodium, MSG and other additives that food manufacturers add to it.
Thank you Sarah for this article. I guess we need to make our own that way we know what we are getting.
Marianne Karlsson. This is one of the best health blogs on the internet and it does not contain biased information and she is not an agent from any industry. You can get a lot of good information here and she is only trying to help. She should be paid for it but I think she is not.
I never had seitan with GMO. I made it myself a few times, to make a wok with vegetables, soy sauce (tamari), ginger, rice malt and roasted sesame oil. We had to use conventional flour as it was the only one with more protein. We washed the wheatdough in cold and warm water and then cooked it in water with some tamari and mushrooms. I cannot think this would be harmful to eat. I have no issues with gluten. Those issues are new and come from wheat getting lots of Roundup/chemicals when growing it. I lived then in Sweden and there is no seitan there with GMO; we don’t have so much toxic foods as in the USA, I think.
I stopped eating meat as a child because I don’t like it and I love animals. I cannot make myself eat it. I have been vegan at two points in my life remember being quite dogmatic about it, until I began to become really sick at age 26. I discovered on my own that I was gluten intolerant. I have long suspected companies pad products with gluten since it’s a cheap byproduct, and since I ate so much bread and pasta in my youth, I ended up intolerant.
I have also had lifelong sleep issues. I believe it is due to a deficit of taurine since taurine is primarily found in meat.
I do eat eggs and in recent years, a fair amount of dairy. I only buy organic and pasture raised. Also, I believe in butter, grass fed and organic if you can get it. I won’t eat canola oil under any circumstances.
My iron has been chronically low, about as low as iron levels can get. I warn vegetarians and vegan all the time but they don’t listen. Years ago in an ethics class a professor had us read An Animal’s Place by Michael Pollan. That changed my outlook completely and I decided it was a much better use of my energy to argue for the humane treatment of farm animals, and small, sustainable farms, rather than to try to convince people who are never going to be convinced not to eat meat. The planet cannot sustain an all vegetarian population, some countries’ topographies only support animals such as goats, and animals die in the production of grains.
I think this is an excellent article and supports my theory that I am now gluten intolerant due to eating excessive gluten for so long. Thank you, Sarah, I love your blog!
I made seitan with my then-husband every couple of months, oh about 20 or so years ago. We ground organic flour and rinsed it repeatedly until nothing was left but the seitan/gluten. It was dense and “meaty.” We didn’t eat it often but it was good every once in a while and I still think it was healthy given the way we made it and the small amount we ate. We called it “dog brains.” Don’t ask.
I don’t care much for the Ezekiel breads–the flavors are too “off” for me. I’ve been sprouting my own locally-grown wheat, dehydrating it, grinding it, & making sourdough bread with it.
Our local co-op makes sourdough bread which I occasionally buy but am suspicious of it because it molds in just a few days on the counter. MY bread does not do that.
I am in the “meat and dairy industry,” do tell me what position of such power and influence I hold!
Sarah, I think you must be an experienced debater in addition to home economist! Did you enjoy it in school? Thanks for your FACTUAL comebacks to detractors!
Actually, no, I never took debate 😉 BUT, I do have four brothers. That will teach you to mind your p’s and q’s in a hurry 🙂
The comebacks aren’t actually factual at all, but okay. For nutritional information about vegan diets, I use go to a site called vegan health. It’s a dot org. It’s run by registered dietitians, and they actually cite their sources, and their sources aren’t other blog articles they wrote.
You mean the registered dieticians that have McDonald’s as a sponsor of their conferences? LOLOL