The gluten doesn't have a very strong flavour on its own (it basically tastes like unflavoured bread) but it picks up whatever you season it with very well. The recipe I make goes for a typical poultry style seasoning with nooch and veggie broth. The stuffing is very umami with a little brightness from the lemon. It's very yummy.

Here's the recipe I use for the roast:

https://www.theppk.com/2011/11/seitan-roast-stuffed-with-shiitakes-and-leeks/

And I make the gravy from this recipe:

https://www.rabbitandwolves.com/vegan-crispy-black-pepper-cauliflower-steaks/

(Which incidentally is also a very good vegan holiday recipe in its own right!)

You might have trouble finding vital wheat gluten. I'd recommend checking either health food or bulk stores, or just buying it online. Everything else should be pretty easily accessible.

While you can make the recipe with the wash-the-flour method from regular flour, it's already a bit of a challenging recipe, and you have to tweak quite a few things to get the proper wet:dry ratio, so I wouldn't recommend it, especially for your first try.

I normally also do a side of mashed potatoes, and then some other veg like carrots+parsnips, or Brussels sprouts.

If you get a lot of specialty items (like faux cheeses and meats) it won't go far. If you shop like normal but just skip the animal products it'll almost surely be cheaper than regular groceries. You can make your own seitan very easily, there are many YouTube videos showing you how. It's just a simple dough that is washed and kneaded to develop the gluten. You can also make your own tofu, but tofu is dirt cheap unless you get fancy stuff so I recommend just buying it.

Ah - that was why I was so confused. Canada, for example, limits the growth hormone in dairy cattle while the US does not.

We used to do vertical in Chicago. You drive the livestock to the top floor, butcher them there, then use gravity to move them around.

Which has two sides to it. It is very hard to get antibiotics unless there is a clear sign of a specific infection going on, e.g. after a tick bite those red circles on the skin.

In any other case just having high fever for a bit does not prompt doctors to check for bacterial infections. Instead they ask you how long you got that fever and if you say anything lower than 6/7 days they simply tell you to come back after 6/7 days if the fever isn't gone still. Only then they run a blood test and prescribe antibiotics, should you have a bacterial infection.

I understand the idea but you could probably test much earlier and give the antibiotics, if useful, earlier so that people can avoid feeling miserable for just a few days instead of a whole week. It also just prompts people to lie about how long they've been sick, just in case.