Too Much Seitan?

[carnap]

That's literally inaccurate. Wheat gluten does indeed have Tryptophan, and has a good deal of it to be honest.

What I said was accurate, whole wheat contains tryptophan but not wheat gluten. Tryptophan is only contained in the part of the wheat berry that gets removed when you make vital wheat gluten. The amino acid breakdown for wheat gluten isn't part of the USDA database but someone did do a study on it:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19523641

Unless it's TVP, which almost is never fortified, but OK.

TVP as a standalone product usually isn't fortified but food manufactures use TVP to create mock meats and the end product is often fortified, for example:

http://www.yvesveggie.com/en/products/b ... ee-burger/

So no, soy is not a higher quality protein.

On the contrary, soy protein is dramatically higher quality than gluten. What you posted isn't a measure of protein quality, its referring to crude values. Also the values aren't correct either, the values for "seitan" appear to be for whole wheat. You need to look at the Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid score. Wheat gluten has a score of just 25 where as soy has a score of 91 which is on par with meat. Note also that whole wheat has a higher score than gluten, that is because some amino acids (like tryptophan) get removed when gluten is isolated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_D ... Acid_Score

Also note as the name implies, they are already adjusting for digestibility.

I add a fair amount of salt, fats, etc to my lentils and beans when I eat it. I sautee my vegetables much of the time. I guess that means that I should avoid bell peppers, beans, legumes, onions, and broccoli because I add seasonings to it, lol

You're ignoring the point as a standalone food wheat gluten tastes terrible where as the same isn't true for lentils, vegetables, etc. They are palatable without adding a ton of salt or infusing them with large amounts of fat.

[brimstoneSalad]

Carnap's point about protein quality of isolated wheat protein isn't entirely wrong, although I think the concern is a bit overblown.
Even whole wheat isn't an amazing source of tryptophan, seitan isn't likely to be the thing that messes people up.

However, the environmental arguments in favor of legume proteins (and using grains as starches) are compelling. In terms of efficiency of protein per land area, wheat is only about as good (or bad) as dairy. Of course it has less of a climate effect because the wheat isn't burping and farting out methane, but yield is an important thing to consider.

Gluten is a good binder, but aside from that isn't as good in environmental or nutritional terms as legume protein, which is why I'd suggest using it 50/50 with a legume protein (like pea or soy protein) to make mock meats.

I don't think it's hard to make it delicious; I like straight gluten stir fried with veggies, it soaks up the sauce a bit. Mixing in some spices and flavor is pretty easy and I don't think makes it unhealthy.

[Take5]

Seitan not tasty? Whatever planet are you on? I've made seitan scores of times and it's never been less than tasty.

Here are my tips for dead easy seitan:

All I do nowadays is to weigh off the leftover stew - today around 350g, then estimate how much wheat gluten I'll need - and I went for 150g.

To the flour I added stock cube, nooch and curry powder - which I then taste to see how flavoursome it is. I then mixed the two together and immediately it was obvious I needed more wheat gluten - so I weighed another 100g and flavoured it appropriately. I added half of this to the mix, which, after I'd kneaded it a bit, turned out to be just right. The leftover powder was placed in a small tub and left in the bag of flour for next time.

I divided the dough - now weighing 600g - into two and rolled one half into a flat disc, which I dry fried for 7-8 minutes each side:

The other half will be baked next time the oven is on - probably Friday evening. That will provide enough for two roast dinners - or one, with the rest cut into chunks and, once again, added to a chilli non carne.

Seitan is wheat gluten powder (available online from the Low Carb Megastore ) mixed with something tasty into a stiff dough. The tasty stuff (ragu sauce, lentil curry, or whatever) can be mashed or blitzed with a hand blender. This latter produces a thick slurry to which you add gluten powder. I generally work on the ratio of 2 parts slurry to one part gluten powder - but you may have to add either more GP or liquid.

So, you make a tasty ragu sauce, say (or you have some leftover, which is what I tend to do). To this you add more bouillon powder, mushroom sauce, soy sauce, curry powder or whatever. The reason for this is that the gluten powder has no flavour - so if you don't add extra flavour, your seitan will taste bland.

I've always been concerned about the vagueness of my seitan recipes, so to address that, I made a large cutlet from scratch - measuring exactly what went into it:
100g gluten powder
2 tsps bouillon powder
2 tsps 'Free and easy' cheese sauce powder
2 dsps nutritional yeast
110g water to which I added:
1 and a half tsps bouillon powder
1 dsp mushroom sauce

Kneaded and flattened out into a cutlet and fried for about 7 minutes each side.

I perhaps over-seasoned it by a tsp of veg stock powder, but it's very tasty.

I shall have most of it with some curried wedges and use the rest in a chilli non carne tomorrow.

Now I know exactly what to add to gluten powder to get flavoursome cutlets and chunks!

[carnap]

Seitan not tasty? Whatever planet are you on? I've made seitan scores of times and it's never been less than tasty.

Earth. Wheat gluten, in itself, tastes like cardboard and your recipe is rather high in sodium and you're frying it to make it palatable. But honestly, even after all the salt and frying I still think its pretty bad. But its at least palatable.

Now here is something that really is "dead easy". You get some tempeh, take a minute or so and cut it and put fry it in a pan with no or little oil along with a bit of light soy sauce. With very little effort you get something that is healthy, very nutritious and rich in high quality protein.