seitan

Meaning

Noun

• Specially processed wheat gluten, used as a protein-rich food.

Origin

• Romaji of the Japanese セイタン which was coined by philosopher George Ohsawa in 1961. Ohsawa also occasionally used the kanji term 生蛋 from 生 and 蛋, the first character in 蛋白.
• In Japan, wheat gluten itself is usually referred to as 麩, while seitan in particular is generally written in katakana as . Another common term for this is グルテンミート.