# What do they do with the glutin that has been removed from foods? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 20, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373 "2015-08-20T20:23:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2015, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/21 "2015-08-22T22:47:53Z")
They mix it with the meat they remove from tofu. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/22 "2015-08-23T04:41:54Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > Seems to me that some indie filmmaker is probably out there making a horror movie about gluten terrorizing a neighborhood. I can totally picture Syfy doing that–maybe the next Sharknado will have gluten, too. Last fall at the height of the Ebola scare, “South Park” did an episode called “Gluten Free Ebola”. 😛 Unfortunately, the title was the funniest thing about the episode. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/23 "2015-08-23T17:41:31Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I understand the working title is _Gluten Tag_. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/24 "2015-08-23T21:26:54Z")
So-called glutinous rice contains no gluten, same as regular rice. In this case the word glutinous is used in its original Latin meaning of sticky, gluey, and is not a reference to gluten. Its stickiness comes entirely from a type of starch. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2015, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/25 "2015-08-23T21:53:07Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I think he’s talking about the other end - if you washed the starch out and caught in in a bowl of water, you’d have seitan at one end. If you took the bowl of starchy water and let it evaporate, you’d presumably have something - although not something I’ve ever heard of people using for anything other than sizing in sewing and laundry and hat making. [codex wheat starch](https://www.coeliac.org.uk/glossary/codex-wheat-starch/) is wheat flour with the gluten removed and is used in certain gluten free foods. ---
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/26 "2015-08-24T03:05:56Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > As far as I know only wheat, barley, and rye contain natural gluten. Anything else called gluten is just sort of a layman’s term for a similar thing that isn’t quite the same. A person with celiac disease will not have an adverse reaction to corn so long as it hasn’t come into contact with the grain products listed above. Wheat, rye and barley are the common ones. There are a few other grains that contain gluten, but they’re pretty obscure. For example, triticale contains gluten (it’s a wheat/rye hybrid, so I guess that’s not too surprising). ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/27 "2015-10-17T03:36:11Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > [codex wheat starch](https://www.coeliac.org.uk/glossary/codex-wheat-starch/) is wheat flour with the gluten removed and is used in certain gluten free foods. > [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > There isn’t any gluten in those foods in the first place. Most use flours and grains other than wheat and barley, with oat and rice being chief among them. The problem is that rice flour etc. does not cook or bake the same as wheaten flours, so many other substitutions and additions have to be made to make, say, a cake that is both gluten-free and in any way like the original. > > ETA: I am not sure there is any way to “remove” gluten from wheat- based foods. Not using wheat or barley flour in the first place is the only way to make a gluten-free product. (There may be exceptions, but I’d bet against it being very common.) > > You can buy gluten from baking suppliers, to add to bread recipes when you want more elasticity, bigger bubbles, etc. We stock it. I’d love to have a t-shirt with the old-timey label. 😃 Pretty sure Shalmanese is right. There’s a Japanese food product called [seitan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food)) that is gluten washed from wheat flour. The residue is wheat starch which is food and is used in dim sum amongst other things. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/28 "2015-10-17T08:30:01Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I’ve read that if you knead dough under water for a while, you can wash the “flour” away from the gluten so that you can get a big ball o’ raw gluten. Presumably, if you let the water evaporate, you’ll get a gluten-free white powder. > > Though I presume that it’s largely useless for most purposes. > [@Broomstick](#): > > You’re washing the starch away from the wheat protein when you do that. The resulting product is called “seitan” and is used as a meat substitute, among other things. It’s not a powder unless after the washing you grind it up again. It’s been used for cooking since the 6th Century in China, so it’s not really a new thing. > [@Dangerosa](#): > > I think he’s talking about the other end - if you washed the starch out and caught in in a bowl of water, you’d have seitan at one end. If you took the bowl of starchy water and let it evaporate, you’d presumably have something - although not something I’ve ever heard of people using for anything other than sizing in sewing and laundry and hat making. I’ve tried it - when you drive off the water, you end up with something quite similar to cornstarch. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/29 "2015-10-17T09:01:56Z")
> [@janeslogin](#): > > I’m assuming some gluten free products have had the gluten removed. What do they do with it? Well, when they began to realize what a goldmine this “gluten-free” nonsense was, they just put all that extra gluten in to all the stuff that doesn’t have gluten in it to begin with. Then they take it out again and “Presto!!” You now have access to gluten-free chicken breasts, gluten free 24-packs of waters, heck, even gluten free lubricating gel, for those intimate moments. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/30 "2015-10-17T11:14:20Z")
> [@Darryl\_Lict](#): > > Pretty sure Shalmanese is right. There’s a Japanese food product called [seitan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food)) that is gluten washed from wheat flour. The residue is wheat starch which is food and is used in dim sum amongst other things. The problem with that, from the standpoint of someone with a gluten sensitivity, is that it would be nearly impossible to be sure all traces of gluten have been removed from the starch. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/31 "2015-10-17T11:17:14Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The problem with that, from the standpoint of someone with a gluten sensitivity, is that it would be nearly impossible to be sure all traces of gluten have been removed from the starch. True. The production of seitan and its side products is more to do with vegetarian diets and aesthetics than avoidance of gluten. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373/32 "2015-10-17T22:12:52Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The problem with that, from the standpoint of someone with a gluten sensitivity, is that it would be nearly impossible to be sure all traces of gluten have been removed from the starch. It depends on the degree of sensitivity. The codex standards define gluten free as under 20 ppm. Anything labeled codex wheat starch should have been washed sufficiently to be under 20ppm. Some people will still react at this level but a lot of people will not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-they-do-with-the-glutin-that-has-been-removed-from-foods/728373.md?page=1)