societal media substance abuser might have acknowledge a recurring trend , specifically on X ( formerly Twitter ) and TikTok , where users joke about the origin of the simple graham cracker as a way to cut back sexual impulses . And while it might sound freaky , this is one viral style that is based in Sojourner Truth . Long before they were used to make s’mores or the tasty gall of a Key lime Proto-Indo European , graham crackers served a more victorian design in nineteenth - century America .
Why were graham crackers invented?
Graham crackers were fabricate by Sylvester Graham , an American Presbyterian minister whose persuasion onfood , sex , alcohol , and nutrition would seem a bit extreme to today ’s cracker - snackers . Graham and his chiliad of followers — dubbed Grahamites — believed it was sinful to eat effete solid food . To combat this moral decline , Graham started a diet regimen of his own .
While graham crackers were invented to restrict vice such as smoking and drunkenness or tough behaviour like masturbation and impure thoughts , the result hold out much deep than that .
Graham ran wellness retreats in the 1830s that promote a bland diet that banned refined sugar and meat . According toRefinery29 , Graham ’s aspect finally inhale veganism in America as well as the “ first anti - sugar crusade . ” He condemned alcohol , tobacco , spices , seasoning , butter , and “ tortured ” refined flour . Caffeine was also a no - no . In fact , Graham believed that java and tea were just as unsound as tobacco , opium , or alcohol because they created a “ demand for stimulation . ” However , the worst frailty , in Graham ’s opinion , was overeating . “ A inebriate sometimes reaches honest-to-goodness age ; a trencherman never , ” he oncewrote .
Graham ’s austere philosophy was inform by the underlying belief that eating habits affect citizenry ’s behaviors , and frailty versa . He thought sure foods were “ overstimulating ” and lead to impure thoughts and passion , including masturbation — or “ self - befoulment , ” as he called it — which he believed to be an epidemic that caused both blindness and insanity .
Graham ’s views forthwith influenced Victorian - eracorn snowflake inventorJohn Harvey Kellogg , who was born a year after Graham become flat . Like his predecessor , Kellogg also trust meat and some flavorful foods led to intimate impulses , so he urge for the consumption of patent foods , like cereals and nut , or else . ( Unsurprisingly , the original recipes for both corn snowflake and graham crackers were gratis of sinful sugar . )
In onelecture , Graham enjoin young men they could stop their minds from meander to forbidden places if they avoided “ undue fervor of the brain and tum and gut . ” This meant trust off wrong foods and meat like tobacco , caffeine , pepper , pep , Indian mustard , horseradish root , and peppermint . Even milk was ban because it was “ too exciting and too oppressive . ”
What could Sylvester Graham’s followers eat?
The core constituent of Graham ’s dieting was boodle made of coarsely flat coat pale yellow or rye , unlike the refined white flour loaves that were sell in bakeries at that meter . From this same flour emerged Graham ’s cracker and muffins , both of which were commonbreakfast food . John Harvey Kellogg was know to have eat the crackers and apples for breakfast , and one of his first attempts at making grain involved intoxicate twice - baked cracker bits in milk overnight .
However , Kellogg was one of the few remaining fans of Graham ’s diet , which begin to fall out of favour in the 1840s . At Ohio ’s Oberlin College , a Grahamite was rent in 1840 to strictly enforce the school ’s meal plans . One prof was fired for bringing a white pepper shaker to the dining mansion house , and the hunger - stricken educatee organized a protest the following class , argue that the Graham dieting was “ unequal to the demand of the human scheme as at present developed . ” at long last , the Grahamite and his tyrannic nutrition program were kicked out .
Much like Kellogg ’s corn flakes , someone else step in and corrupted Graham ’s crackers , molding them into the edible form we now know — and , yes , love — today . In Graham ’s slip , it was the National Biscuit Company , which finally became Nabisco ; the fellowship started manufacturing graham crackers in the eighties . But Graham would in all likelihood be pluck in his grave if he knew they contained sugarandwhite flour — and that they ’re often topped with marshmallows and coffee for a really decadent treat .
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A interlingual rendition of this story originally run in 2020 ; it has been updated for 2024 .
