If a person were to look within many homes and bakeries across the world, they would find Gluten as a primary ingredient utilized by the house maker and baker alike. This product, aptly named for its root meaning from the Latin word meaning ‘glue’, forms the basis for which the dough that is created in the kitchen is given its elasticity and its ability to rise. The rather soft, chewy like textures found in breads are again, the result of the presence of gluten. Thus, it is a very important feature in homes and bakeries ever where for the perfect slice of bread that comprises your sandwiches.
So what is gluten, exactly? The composite protein known as Gluten is made up of various species of wheat such as rye and barley. More forensically speaking, gluten protein is found in grass-relative grains and is comprised of both glutelin and prolamin. Found in the endosperm of these grass relative grains, it is combined together with starch. About eighty percent of the proteins found in a seed of wheat contain Glutenin and Gliadin which are the wheat seed’s glutelin and prolamin. Because of the solubility in water, the starch can be easily washed from the seed. Because Gluten is a high protein in foods that contain it, it is also used world-wide as an addition to foods that don’t have high sources of protein.
As the wide variety of plants that create flowers are structured the same as wheat species, with endosperms that contain the proteins needed to feed the embryonic plants in germination, they aren’t all the same as those of the wheat species. Actual Gluten contains the composites of glutenin and gliadin however it is confined to specific species of the family of grass plants. Although proteins found in plant products such as rice and maize are generally referred to as being Glutens, the proteins are fundamentally different from their counterparts found in the wheat species of the grass family in that they lack the ingredient gliandin which is necessary to form actual gluten in conjunction with Glutenin.
Unfortunately, in recent years, there has developed in the global population an allergy to Gluten, which has compelled the health authorities within countries across the world to legislate labelling on foods containing Gluten.
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