seitan

Meanings

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

Etymology

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 (“fresh; raw”) and 蛋, the first character in 蛋白 (tanpaku, “protein”). In Japan, wheat gluten itself is usually referred to as 麩 (fu, “wheat bran, gluten”), while seitan in particular is generally written in katakana as セイタン. Another common term for this is グルテンミート (“gluten meat”).