1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. 2 00:00:06,400 --> 00:00:11,240 Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, let's face it, one 3 00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:13,840 Speaker 1: of the best things about making a camp fire is 4 00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:18,720 Speaker 1: making s'mores, the quintessentially American treat consisting of a toasted, 5 00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:22,160 Speaker 1: gooey marshmallow and a square of melted chocolate pressed between 6 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:26,080 Speaker 1: two crisp Graham crackers. But have you ever wondered where 7 00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:28,760 Speaker 1: graham crackers came from or where they got their name? 8 00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:33,080 Speaker 1: The original Graham cracker was a health food developed in 9 00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:35,960 Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties from the teachings of an American food 10 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:40,840 Speaker 1: reformer and religious teacher named Sylvester Graham, who, by all accounts, 11 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:44,040 Speaker 1: would be appalled by what's called a Graham cracker today, 12 00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:47,400 Speaker 1: which is typically made with refined flour, high fructose corn syrup, 13 00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:51,879 Speaker 1: and a dab of honey for marketing purposes. Instead, Graham's 14 00:00:51,880 --> 00:00:55,760 Speaker 1: original cracker called for just wheat and Graham flower, a 15 00:00:55,840 --> 00:00:58,720 Speaker 1: form of whole wheat flour made by grinding the endosperm 16 00:00:58,800 --> 00:01:01,560 Speaker 1: of winter wheat into a fine powder and mixing it 17 00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:04,880 Speaker 1: with the bran and wheat germ. It has of coarse 18 00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:09,000 Speaker 1: texture and nutty flavor. The resulting cracker contained no sugar 19 00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:11,960 Speaker 1: or fat and often had to be softened by soaking 20 00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:16,240 Speaker 1: or boiling before eating. But we spoke with New York 21 00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:21,040 Speaker 1: based food historian Sarah Wassburg Johnson. She said, it's funny 22 00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:23,080 Speaker 1: that of all the things that he talks about with 23 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:26,120 Speaker 1: his health reform, that's the one thing that gets widely 24 00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:29,720 Speaker 1: adopted and has his name. Graham Flower gets adopted by 25 00:01:29,720 --> 00:01:32,000 Speaker 1: people who may not even be aware of him, even 26 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:34,680 Speaker 1: towards the end of the nineteenth century, and persists into 27 00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:37,880 Speaker 1: some of the twentieth century. You hear about Graham gems 28 00:01:37,959 --> 00:01:43,600 Speaker 1: and Graham bread and cookbooks up to the nineties and fifties. Graham, 29 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:46,399 Speaker 1: who was not a doctor, although he sometimes went by 30 00:01:46,480 --> 00:01:50,680 Speaker 1: Doctor Graham, was horrified by the overprocessing and enriching of 31 00:01:50,720 --> 00:01:53,960 Speaker 1: wheat flour and believed that the loss of fiber and 32 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:59,240 Speaker 1: other nutrients in white flower ruined consumers health. In seven, 33 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:02,480 Speaker 1: Graham public a pamphlet entitled A Treatise on Bread and 34 00:02:02,520 --> 00:02:06,720 Speaker 1: Bread Making. In the intro, he wrote, thousands in civic 35 00:02:06,760 --> 00:02:09,679 Speaker 1: life will for years, and perhaps as long as they live, 36 00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:13,400 Speaker 1: eat the most miserable trash that can be imagined in 37 00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:17,720 Speaker 1: the form of bread. He was basically advocating for a 38 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:21,160 Speaker 1: whole wheat homemade bread, and was thus hailed by the 39 00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:25,239 Speaker 1: philosopher poet Ralph Waldo Emerson as the prophet of bran bread. 40 00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:29,760 Speaker 1: Graham was a proponent and follower of vegetarianism, founding the 41 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:33,960 Speaker 1: American Vegetarian Society in eighteen fifty. He also believed in 42 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:38,480 Speaker 1: limiting exposure to most spices, refined sugar, and all processed foods. 43 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,480 Speaker 1: A Presbyterian nster, Graham was a member of the Temperance Movement, 44 00:02:42,760 --> 00:02:45,840 Speaker 1: abstaining not only from alcohol, but even from using yeast 45 00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:50,000 Speaker 1: in baking. Johnson explained, I think that's why Graham crackers 46 00:02:50,040 --> 00:02:53,040 Speaker 1: became a thing, because they were unleavened. They didn't have 47 00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:56,200 Speaker 1: brewers yeast in them. The Temperance movement was a big 48 00:02:56,240 --> 00:02:59,240 Speaker 1: part of a certain kind of Protestantism, but the really 49 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:02,560 Speaker 1: hard core tempt prince people like Graham believed you couldn't 50 00:03:02,639 --> 00:03:07,560 Speaker 1: use yeast because yeast produces alcohol. In addition to writing 51 00:03:07,600 --> 00:03:10,720 Speaker 1: about food, Graham also gave lectures on diet reform that 52 00:03:10,760 --> 00:03:14,480 Speaker 1: are difficult to separate from his religious philosophy because he 53 00:03:14,639 --> 00:03:18,160 Speaker 1: himself did not Graham's views on diet were linked not 54 00:03:18,240 --> 00:03:21,600 Speaker 1: only to physical but also to moral and spiritual health. 55 00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:26,280 Speaker 1: He promoted daily bathing, toothbrushing, eating three regular meals a day, 56 00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:31,119 Speaker 1: getting outside, drinking only the cleanest water, and exercising all 57 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:35,880 Speaker 1: great stuff by today's standards. He also believed that illness 58 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:39,920 Speaker 1: came from immorality, including indulging in any form of lust 59 00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:43,640 Speaker 1: or sexual contact for any reason other than procreation, and 60 00:03:43,760 --> 00:03:47,400 Speaker 1: even that any more often than necessary. Many of Graham's 61 00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:51,720 Speaker 1: recommendations for healthy living, cold baths, sleeping on hard mattresses, 62 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:55,800 Speaker 1: standing from alcohol, meat, sugar, spicy foods, refined foods, and 63 00:03:55,960 --> 00:03:59,080 Speaker 1: even warm foods were meant to help you avoid over 64 00:03:59,120 --> 00:04:04,720 Speaker 1: stimulation and thus protect you from sinful temptation, and Johnson 65 00:04:04,760 --> 00:04:07,680 Speaker 1: points out that these practices were also similar to those 66 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:10,880 Speaker 1: of the self disciplinary esthetic monks of the medieval period, 67 00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:15,080 Speaker 1: which were partially in response to the plague. She explained, 68 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:18,040 Speaker 1: many of Graham's health reforms that happened in the nineteenth 69 00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:21,599 Speaker 1: century come out of a series of cholera and typhoid epidemics. 70 00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:24,720 Speaker 1: That's where the water cure comes in, and the emphasis 71 00:04:24,720 --> 00:04:27,680 Speaker 1: on the health and sanitation of avoiding the excesses of 72 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:30,680 Speaker 1: life that people thought might be a factor in disease. 73 00:04:32,320 --> 00:04:35,920 Speaker 1: At the time, technological change and new urbanism brought about 74 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:40,479 Speaker 1: changes in society that not everyone viewed positively. Graham was 75 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:43,880 Speaker 1: rightly concerned about food purity and the dangers in commercial 76 00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:47,800 Speaker 1: food production as populations shifted from farms to cities, but 77 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:51,839 Speaker 1: his religious convictions tempered the lasting influence of this man, 78 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:54,960 Speaker 1: who was a forerunner of the American health food movement. 79 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:59,640 Speaker 1: Johnson said he believed there's less peer pressure to behave 80 00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:01,960 Speaker 1: correct lee if you moved to the city where you're 81 00:05:01,960 --> 00:05:04,880 Speaker 1: not known to everyone. A lot of his ideas are 82 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:07,800 Speaker 1: about control and how you create order in a time 83 00:05:07,839 --> 00:05:11,159 Speaker 1: of changing chaos. He stripped a lot of the joy 84 00:05:11,200 --> 00:05:14,800 Speaker 1: out of life, eating, sex, sleeping in baths, which is 85 00:05:14,839 --> 00:05:18,360 Speaker 1: why his actual teachings are not adopted. Part of it 86 00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:21,040 Speaker 1: is the temperance. Part of it is the self denial. 87 00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:23,560 Speaker 1: Who wants to sleep on a board if you don't 88 00:05:23,600 --> 00:05:25,680 Speaker 1: have to? Who wants to take a cold bath if 89 00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:29,560 Speaker 1: you don't have to? But Graham flower, especially if you're 90 00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:33,520 Speaker 1: using freshly ground whole wheat, is delicious. It's really good 91 00:05:33,680 --> 00:05:35,880 Speaker 1: and does have a lot more flavor than white flower. 92 00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:39,280 Speaker 1: I can see why that would be the thing that persists, 93 00:05:40,720 --> 00:05:43,920 Speaker 1: but at the time he had thousands of followers referred 94 00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:47,920 Speaker 1: to as Grandma's. American author Louisa May Alcott's family kept 95 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:51,360 Speaker 1: a Graham table where meat, tobacco, and coffee were banned. 96 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:55,719 Speaker 1: Graham greatly influenced other health reformers who are also religious 97 00:05:55,760 --> 00:05:58,640 Speaker 1: leaders of the day, including Ellen White, an adherent of 98 00:05:58,680 --> 00:06:04,120 Speaker 1: Seventh Day Adventism, and Dr John Kellogg, another Seventh Day Adventist, who, 99 00:06:04,160 --> 00:06:07,599 Speaker 1: along with his brother Will, invented granola corn flakes, the 100 00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:10,960 Speaker 1: foundation of the Kellogg's brand, and who also would have 101 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:14,600 Speaker 1: been horrified by what we modernly do with his creations. 102 00:06:19,960 --> 00:06:22,599 Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Patty Resmussen and produced by 103 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:25,560 Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more in this lots of other granular topics, 104 00:06:25,640 --> 00:06:28,320 Speaker 1: visit how stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of 105 00:06:28,360 --> 00:06:31,160 Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit 106 00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:33,920 Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 107 00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:34,920 Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.