If I was in charge of All Food Everywhere, I would fire whoever made the decision to name tofu the ambassador of meat substitutes. Now I don't want to insult tofu — like a child who gets a puppy instead of a kitten for a pet, I have learned to love tofu after spending a few years with it. But there is still something about tofu in its raw state that turns me off. Sure, when tofu converts try to convince the uninitiated, they bring up a very good point: Tofu tastes like whatever you cook it in. But while this is mostly true, it doesn't stop tofu from having a consistency that can vary between pudding and hard cheese, without retaining the best qualities of either. The worst offender is salad-bar tofu, the tofu that's put out as more of a visual courtesy than an edible ingredient. Here's a tip: If you have not tried tofu before, do not try salad bar tofu. It's like eating a bean-curd-flavored cube of Jell-O.

Then there's seitan. Like tofu, seitan easily takes on the flavor of what it's cooked with. But unlike tofu, seitan has a density and texture that actually resembles meat. It's a staple in many vegetarian and vegan diets, and it's what meatless Chinese restaurants use to very-convincingly mimic chicken, pig, or cow. As a younger Meg put it after biting into a mythically good toasted seitan sandwich from the Shortstop Deli in Ithaca, New York: "Seitan tastes kind of gross if you're a meat eater, and if you're a vegetarian, it's like, 'Holy shit!  Am I eating meat?'"

No, innocent younger Meg, you're eating gluten, the high-protein stuff that's left when you knead all of the starch out of wheat flour. In fact, seitan is often just called "wheat gluten.” And as a food, gluten doesn't just have a nice texture — it also has serious health benefits: 3 ounces of seitan packs 30 grams of protein, whereas a 3.5-ounce chicken breast sports a surprisingly comparable 31 grams. And tofu? Well, four ounces of it will only give you 10.1 grams. Amateur.

The first time I made my own seitan, I kneaded all of the starch out of wheat flour as instructed, and I ended up with nubby little globs that, even after being smothered in barbecue sauce and cooked on the grill, still tasted like wheat-flavored gum. But over time, I've discovered three things: 1) The key to good seitan is mixing in flavorings, 2) seitan can be cooked in a host of different ways, and each one leads to a different, awesome texture, and 3) kneading wheat flour is for chumps. Even if your grocery store doesn't sell pre-made seitan, there's a good chance the place sells gluten flour in the baking aisle. All you need to do is mix the gluten with some spices, add water, knead, and cook it however you want, and there you are!  Delicious wheat-meat.

So start counting down, tofu: Your days at the top of the meatless heap are numbered.

Meg Favreau is a writer and comedian living in Philadelphia. She blogs at ihearyoulikestories.com.

Photos by Meg Favreau, "DIY" photograph by John and Eliza Forder/Getty Images, "Pantry" photograph by Áslaug Snorradóttir.