Good Lifestyle

Eating with a campfire is one of the great pleasures of life, but for Sylvester Graham - the moralist counterpart of Graham's crackers - such indulgent treatment would have been blasphemy.

Today, Graham's crackers are a pillar of lunch boxes, snacks after school and even lazy "gingerbread"Houses. The Crackers of the Nabisco Housekeeper of Nabisco Honey have seen sales of about$ 285 million In 2018 alone, Starbucks has a seasonal Latte and Trader Joe'sChocolate covers. The Cracker Graham is not out of style. However, these sweet iterations are far from the puritanical roots of the cracker.

Who was Sylvester Graham?

The clean consumption is all the craze these days, but the concept is nothing new. Sylvester Graham, born in Connecticut in 1794, was a Presbyterian minister whopreached on the virtues afiber-rich, Vegetarian, Limited dairy and food without alcohol and smoking. In his treatise on bread and making bread, Grahamfrankly written"Thousands of people in civic life will have, for years, and perhaps as long as they live, eat the most miserable trash can be imagined, in the form of bread."

He asserted that after the "Graham Diet" would not only give a healthy life, but also suppressing lustful presses, that he felt was a scourge on society. And his message resonated, if not really with the masses, but at least with a core group of followers called themselves"Grahamites."

Graham was a guru of early health

In some ways, Graham was ahead of his time. Herecommended For the use of wheat flour with refined white flour, recommended aPlant-based dietand included exercise, fresh air and sleep in its holistic view of a healthy lifestyle. ADEPTS INCLUDEDDr. John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of corn flakes, although it was the brother of Kellogg who added sugar and marketed them (but it's another story).

For all Graham's beliefs that will agree with today's trends, some other principles of his philosophy were a little more ... fringe. For example, itso-called thought What to eat ketchup or mustard will make you go crazy and that everyone should sleep with the open window, even in winter.

How do Graham crack so popular?

Where do Graham crackers enter the photo? Well, non-prone flour and unbleached that Graham proselytetized made from wheat berries has become known asGraham flour. Fibrous fibrous crackers made from Graham flour then called Graham Crackers.

Of course, the crackers approved by Graham were dry and bland. It was not beforeAround 1900 That they were largely made by bakeries, and not before 1925 the variety of sweet housekeeper hit the market. The sweet cracker is the one we know now, love us, and often indulge, especially when there is a lot of chocolate and marshmallows around. And although Sylvester Graham can ride in his grave, knowing that this beloved treatment is now made with converted sugar and white flour, we greet him for the origin of the snack.