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Doctor Sylvester Graham was a dietary reformer born in Suffield, CT in 1794. His life’s work starts in the 1830s when he started to publically criticize the American eating and behavioral habits. At this point (and for years afterwards), the American diet consisted of many greasy foods, a large amount of meat, and, unfortunately, a scarce amount of fruits of vegetables. To Graham, this diet was detrimental to one’s health, and in that case, he was right. It was other things he believed that are now known to be false. These would be things like the behavioral aspects of his teachings. He preached that sexual desires exhausted the body, and therefore they made the body prone to more diseases and infections. He did not limit this theory to only couples; he made it clear, to young men primarily, that self excitement was even worse than sex. He connected masturbation to almost any disease because the people who were assumed to be “self abusers” did not care about personal hygiene, were shy, or suspicious. This made them easy targets for Graham because they did not have the courage to stand up to his opposing figure.

His teachings were not the first of this dietary type. There were some before him that advocated for better eating habits, but they did not have the time period advantages that Graham had. For example, the invention of the steam press greatly assisted the mass output of his information to the people. Graham got lucky to have the correct timing. One of these unfortunate early birds that greatly influenced Graham was William Metcalfe. He was the first public advocate for vegetarianism and better eating habits. However, even though Metcalfe had a connection between one of the basic ideals of Graham, Metcalfe justified his ideas through a moral standpoint, while Graham was for the protection of the body and a much more medical reason. He would support Graham because they both have the common idea of better dietary needs for the people.

Sylvester Graham’s teachings were all based on the fact that without moderation of all everyday activities, the human body would become prone to disease and be extremely unhealthy. In order to strengthen the body and keep it healthy, one would have to maintain a stellar diet. This meant staying away from all “exciting” foods. This would include spices, coffee, meat, spicy foods, and especially alcohol. The argument was that these stimulating foods and drinks would cause a hot or exciting temperament. This would then cause the temptations of lust, gambling, and other things to be too tempting for people to resist; they would then give in to the activities and prone their bodies to disease and malnutrition. Alcohol was the worst of those foods and drinks. Graham was a firm believer in temperance of alcohol and he believed that alcohol was one of the gateways that led one into doing other activities that further destroyed the body and mind. The diet that he prescribed for his followers, or Grahamites, was made up of his graham bread, which did not have any of the chemicals that were added to white bread at that time and deemed unhealthy by Graham (where graham crackers came from) and many vegetables.

Another large section of his beliefs were of the dangers in sexual desire and pleasure, and especially masturbation. He gave highly controversial lectures to young men and their parents warning them about the hazards of masturbation. The frankness of these lectures was highly criticized for their inappropriate subjects. However, Graham defended it by saying that it was imperative that parents knew about it in order to censor their kids “activities.” The problems he had with sex and masturbation were that they supposedly drained the body of all the necessary energy in order to fight off disease and infections by the wasting of bodily fluids. This meant that any sexual activity was a detriment to one’s health and ultimately led to insanity because there were no defenses left in the body to block these out; they were all spent during the sexual activities. His remedy for this was to follow the diet that he laid out. He said that the consumption of vegetables and, more importantly, graham bread, sexual desires and masturbation would be curbed. This meant that he suggested the solution for stopping sexual urges to be eating graham bread. While the amount of support he had declined when he died at the early age of 57, he still had lasting effects on people and the idealism of America. One person that he influenced and could vouch for him being a reformist was John Harvey Kellogg. His simple granola was instituted in the Kellogg Sanitarium, and that product was largely based on Graham’s own graham cracker. His ideas also affected Kellogg. Kellogg believed in the vegetarian reform and of the atrocities that sexual desires can bring. This was something that was learned directly from Graham, and he continued to try and teach people his values. Even though Graham’s public career only lasted about ten years (1830-1840) and his ideals were very controversial, he made a lasting impact with his creation of the graham cracker, and he helped propel the vegetarian reform tenfold within America. Even though his efforts to keep the Grahamites going might have failed, he succeeded in making information spread throughout the people of America that is still used today.

Bibliography:

Lobel, Cindy. "Sylvester Graham and Antebellum Diet Reform | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History." //The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History//. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2012. .

"Porn Flakes - John Harvey Kellogg, Sylvester Graham." //Stay Free! Home Base//. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2012. .

"Sylvester Graham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." //Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2012. .

"Sylvester Graham in The Market Revolution." //Shmoop: Homework Help, Teacher Resources, Test Prep//. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2012. .