Is vital gluten flour okay for me?

[beansmama]

I've been doing online searches in an attempt to find out if vital gluten flour (aka the stuff you make seitan with...) is unhealthy, but beyond gluten intolerance and celiacs, etc, I can't find anything.

Is vital gluten flour bad for us?

We love seitan (homemade), so it would be a total bummer to have to give the stuff up...but I'm on a journey towards health...so if it's gotta go...it's gotta go (well, mostly...I'd probably still sneak it in sometimes)

So...to eat or not to eat? That's the question.

And, by 'unhealthy' I mean...is it blocking the absorption or needed minerals/vitamins? Is it gonna cause colon cancer, lol (okay, not really 'lol' worthy - but I'm being extreme here!)?

You get the picture...

Tia!

[cristeen]

Well, my stance on it is that it is an extremely refined wheat product. As such it falls into the category with other refined foods, that being of foods we don't eat as part of our every day diets.

Unless you're properly preparing it at home, it is most likely blocking absorption. But honestly, I'd be hard pressed to choose which is worse between it and tofu - neither is all that great, IMO, and best eaten in moderation if at all.

[Sayward]

You're going to get a wide variety of answers, because there are vastly different views on what is 'healthy' on this board.

For example, I would definitely not call vital wheat gluten 'highly refined'. It's definitely not a whole food, but neither is, say, fermented cod liver oil. That's not always a horrible thing, obviously. I'd say seitan is about as processed as coconut oil is. And in my opinion, both can be part of a very healthy diet.