In the process of learning about the Dukan Diet, I found out about something called Seitan (also known as wheat meat) that I had never heard of before. Seitan (pronounced say-tan) is a high-protein food made from wheat gluten. Gluten is the protein in wheat that allows bread to capture the carbon dioxide produced by yeast and rise (see How Bread Works for details). If you are a vegetarian or vegan trying to follow the Dukan Diet, things like seitan and tofu are likely to be popular sources of protein.

To make seitan you need a source of gluten. You can buy it, or you can make gluten yourself from normal wheat flour as shown here (fast forward through the 75 second intro montage at the beginning):

You can see that the process is very simple but a little time consuming. You make a dough from wheat flour and water and then use running water to wash the starches out of the dough. What is left behind is the gluten. Here is another version of the same idea along with a recipe for making an easy seitan dish:

Once you have the gluten, you can prepare it in all sorts of ways. The prior video showed how to boil it in soup stock. The following video shows how to grill it:

You can make meatballs (note that she bought her gluten in dried form at the store):

You can make mock corned beef (he also starts with store-bought gluten):

And so on – you can find lots of seitan recipes via Google and YouTube.

See also: How the Dukan Diet Works