Wheat gluten was fortified by simple addition or by carbodiimide-mediated covalent attachment of lysine, iV'-acetyllysine, or N'-benzylidenelysine. Samples with and without added glucose were compared for color and lysine destruction after baking (190 °C; 10 min). In general, covalently enriched products had lighter color and higher percentages of total, DNBS-available, and pepsin-pancreatin-digestible lysine contents than freely enriched products, especially in the crust portion. iV'-Benzylidenelysineenriched gluten was particularly stable. Relative nutritive values by Tetrahymena bioassay were 44, 58, and 88 for baked gluten and freely and covalently iV'-benzylidenelysine (1%) enriched glutens, respectively, compared to 100 for casein. It is concluded that covalently attached lysine is more stable (ATCC) was purchased from the American Type Culture Collection, Rockville, MD.Carbodiimide Reaction. Covalently enriched gluten samples were prepared as previously described (Li-Chan et al., 1979;Li-Chan and Nakai, 1980) by coupling lysine, M-acetyllysine, or iV'-benzylidenelysine to gluten by using EDC. Covalently enriched "acid gluten" samples were prepared similarly by using gluten previously solubilized by autoclaving (120 °C; 15 min) in 0.05 N HCI, according