Is Gluten (Seitan) a complete protein?

[Valerie Fowler]

Hello,

I just made gluten and had read that it supplies
56 grams of protein per 2/3 cup.

Does anyone know if that gluten is a complete
protien or do I need to eat it with rice or
pasta?

Thanks a lot !

Val

[Mike in Ohio]

Actually, off hand, I don't know if it is or not. But wouldn't you be
eating it with something else anyways. It doesn't have to be with beans
and rice. But usually when I eat anything, it's with at least several
other things. There are a lot of amino acid books at the library that
show what each food is high in and low in or deficient in.

Mike

[AWVacaBrew]

Gluten(Seitan) is made from wheat. Wheat is not a "complete" protein source.

>I just made gluten and had read that it supplies<BR>
>56 grams of protein per 2/3 cup.<BR>
><BR>
>Does anyone know if that gluten is a complete<BR>
>protien or do I need to eat it with rice or<BR>
>pasta?<BR>
><BR>
>Thanks a lot !<BR>
><BR>
>Val<BR>

[Tony Purmal]

Valerie Fowler wrote:
>
> Hello,

>
> I just made gluten and had read that it supplies

> 56 grams of protein per 2/3 cup.
>

> Does anyone know if that gluten is a complete

> protien or do I need to eat it with rice or

> pasta?
>
> Thanks a lot !
>
> Val

Since gluten is usually (if not always) derived from wheat flour, I
suspect you should treat it as bread or tortillas for the type of
protien it provides. If that's the case adding pasta or rice wouldn't
help. You need something like beans or lentils to complete the protien.

Tony Purmal
apu...@us.oracle.com^

[Mike in Ohio]

What AWVacaBrew said about it being from wheat is true. But you need to
understand what the exact definition of complete protein he's using is.
Some people use the term incomplete protein to say that a food is
missing an essential amino acid. Others use this term to say something
doesn't have the right ratio or enough quantity of a certain amino acid.
If wheat was incomplete by the first definition, and I'm almost positive
it isn't, then you could infer that gluten must be incomplete because it
comes from wheat. But if you use the second and more popular definition,
you can't infer this. Just because wheat has a low quantity of something
doesn't mean that a much more concentrated form of its protein is going
to be low in that same amino acid, quantity-wise. It probably would be
ratio-wise incomplete though. But if you use that as your criteria, then
beef is incomplete too, ratio-wise that is. So I'm sorry to say that
I've spent all this time and still haven't answered your question, I've
just posed a few more.

Mike

[assets.wharton.upenn.edu]

On Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:58:01 +0000; r39...@email.sps.mot.com wrote:

: I just made gluten and had read that it supplies

: 56 grams of protein per 2/3 cup.

: Does anyone know if that gluten is a complete
: protien or do I need to eat it with rice or
: pasta?

Val,

Gluten flour is complete but weak for the essential amino
acids lysine and tyrosine, around 40% and 50% respectively.

What this means is that for your 56 grams of protein,
if you wished to use that protein for building muscles
and nerves, and not just food energy value, then of that
56 grams, only 40% would be available, or rougly, 22.4 grams.
This is a okay but maybe on the low side, depending on your needs.

Since pasta is just wheat and has less protein than wheat gluten,
and rice is even less than
pasta, I would not feel comfortable suggesting this as a
remedy. Be better to use more wheat gluten than pasta.

Instead, try soybeans for they are 100% in the lysine and
tyrosine values.

If you want a grain, then triticale will do around 60% for the
lysine. Quinoa will come close to that. Both will boost
the tyrosine over 100%, so that's not a concern now.

Adam

--
To get back to me, put "sundor96" before the @ sign, thanks.

[Simpleton]

Mike Herman wrote in message <34e4f...@feed1.realtime.net>...
>
>It is my understanding that in america the food labeling laws state
>that "protien" on a label is complete protien.

This is not the case. The protein listed on the label is total protein; it
doesn't imply anything about the completeness.

>in fact there is usually more than what is labeled if you combine
>other amino acids.

This is not the case either; if anything the truth is just the opposite. The
protein listed on the package is the total of *all* amino acids, including
those that the body is capable of providing for itself. There are only eight
so-called essential amino acids (possibly 9-10 for children) which the body
cannot sufficiently produce and that must be supplied by the diet. The
amount of protein shown on the label is the total protein from all amino
acids, the eight essential ones plus the remaining 12 non-essential ones.

>If I am wrong could someone please please please point me toward
>a valid refernce that I can pick up in a local bookstore because
>I am pretty confused about this.

If you're anywhere near a university, try a biology, nutrition, or food
science textbook (pretty cheap if you buy one secondhand that's gone out of
print). Textbooks are generally a little better than for basic facts than
books you'll find at bookstores, which are often promoting some particular
kind of hokey diet fad or contain a lot of mis-information. But for just
getting started, you can find out a lot of stuff on the internet. Just do a
yahoo search for whatever you want to know. Some sites to get you started:
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl

>As for gluten... I remeber reading a hippie cookbook years ago that
>explained gluten as a complete protien with many recipes. I cannot
>remember exactly what it is made from.

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but the protein in wheat gluten is not
a complete protein. It contains more than twice as much tryptophan as lysine
(amino acids), and therefore should be balanced by including in the diet
some sort of food which is higher in lysine (e.g. beans). But you should
understand something about "complete" protein foods, because I think there
is a tendency for people to think that you *must* either get complete
protein foods, or balance your foods so that the protein in the diet is
complete. Neither of these ideas is true. The only thing that is meant by
"complete protein" is that the essential amino acids in the food are pretty
much balanced in the ratios that our body needs them. But so what? Your body
needs certain amounts of all eight amino acids (amino acids are what make up
protein, for those that don't know), and as long as you meet the minimal
amount for each amino acid individually over the course of a day, it doesn't
really matter if the protein you eat is complete or not. So, even though
wheat gluten protein is fairly "incomplete", you could still get all the
protein you need from wheat gluten alone. It would just mean that you have
to eat more food (in this case, wheat gluten alone) than if you ate a diet
which included lysine-rich foods as well. But the average western-style diet
contains so many calories and so much protein anyway, getting enough of all
the amino acids isn't going to be that great a concern. That is to say, even
when you eat foods with incomplete proteins, if you eat enough of them, you
still manage to meet the minimal amino acid requirements.
The only time you really need to be making sure you're balancing your
amino acids properly is when you are both vegan and on a diet which limits
total caloric intake. Even vegetarian dieters need not be too concerned,
since eggs and dairy products all generally have complete proteins.

As a personal comment about wheat gluten though, I say don't bother with
the stuff. It is basically just wheat flour in which everything except the
protein has been squeezed out. That is, virtually all the fiber and most of
the vitamins that were present in the original wheat flour are missing from
wheat gluten, leaving you with a blob of nothing but protein. Unless you're
desperate to get protein in your diet (recommended daily amount is only
around 50 grams per day), wheat gluten is basically just empty calories; no
more nutritious than a bag of chips.

[Mike Herman]

It is my understanding that in america the food labeling laws state
that "protien" on a label is complete protien.

in fact there is usually more than what is labeled if you combine
other amino acids.

Someone correct me if I am wrong....

If I am wrong could someone please please please point me toward
a valid refernce that I can pick up in a local bookstore because
I am pretty confused about this.

As for gluten... I remeber reading a hippie cookbook years ago that

explained gluten as a complete protien with many recipes. I cannot
remember exactly what it is made from.

by the way my fav protien grain is buckwheat... love that stuff.

Mike Herman
Licensed Electrician
From line faked, use mikeh at bga dot com

[assets.wharton.upenn.edu]

On Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:58:01 +0000; r39...@email.sps.mot.com wrote:
: I just made gluten and had read that it supplies
: 56 grams of protein per 2/3 cup.
: Does anyone know if that gluten is a complete
: protien or do I need to eat it with rice or
: pasta?

: Val

Gluten Flour 1 cup Roy Walford's Diet Program in MSDOS.

AA/RDA AA/RDA
% %
Calories 529.2____cal 26 Protein 57.96____ g 64
Fat 2.66_____ g 8 Carbohydrates 65.8_____ g 20
Fiber 11.06____ g 37 Cholesterol 0________ mg 0

Tyrosine 1876_____ mg 195 Lysine 1106_____ mg 154
Phenylalanine + 3150_____ mg 328 Leucine 4340_____ mg 452
Valine 2744_____ mg 327 Methio + Cystine 2256.8___ mg 376
Tryptophane 616______ mg 342 Threonine 1540_____ mg 321
Isoleucine 2660_____ mg 369
Vitamin A 0________ IU 0
Vitamin C 0________ mg 0 Vitamin D 0________ IU 0
Vitamin E 0________ IU 0 Vitamin K 0________mcg 0
Thiamine 0.042____ mg 3 Riboflavin 0.042____ mg 2
Niacin 0.7______ mg 3 B-6 0________ mg 0
Folacin 35_______mcg 9 B-12 0________mcg 0
Pantothenic Acid 0________ mg 0 Biotin 0________mcg 0

Calcium 56_______ mg 5 Phosphorous 196______ mg 16
Magnesium 0________ mg 0 Potassium 84_______ mg 4
Sodium 2.8______ mg 0 Iron 0.56_____ mg 3
Copper 0________ mg 0 Manganese 0________ mg 0
Zinc 2.31_____ mg 15 Selenium 0________mcg 0
Chromium 11.2_____mcg 22

That was from Dr. Roy Walford's Diet Program for MSDOS. He is the medical
doctor who was in the Biosphere for two years. His area of expertise is
life extension through caloric restrition and adequate nutrition (CRAN).
Although not proved yet for long living humans, rats have had their life
spans doubled. That is, rats that ordinarily live for 2 years, now live
for 4 years instead.

The above assumes 90 grams of protein for 100%. The essential amino acids
are based on something else, not quite sure. But you can see that lysine
is the limiting one. But it's over 100% for the AA/RDA. RDA is probably
Recommended Dietary Allowance, and AA is Adult Allowance? Not sure.

Anybody care to help out?

Soybeans would boost tyrosine and lysine way over the top, as I may have
mentioned in a previous post that I deleted. Want to post the details
directly so deleted that post. Soybeans have lots of tyrosine and lysine.

Triticale has lysine at 60% instead of 40% as gluten does.
Quinoa is almost as good as triticale. For tyrosine, triticale and quinoa
are both at the 100% mark.

If the data are accurate, one might conjecture that the gluten flour at
the 1 cup level is supplying the complete essential amino acids. Yes?

Want to think the original poster and the replies from other posters for
their sincere attempts to answer this fundamental question. It's nice to
see that. Hopefully, some day the FDA and the USDA will actually put on
labels the info one would need for very intelligent decision making.