Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) was a Presbyterian minister who invented the graham cracker in 1829. Less well-known are the social reforms and health theories he championed. He believed, for example, that a vegetable diet and eating homemade, coarsely ground whole-wheat flour promoted mental and physical health and prevented alcoholism. He also advised Americans to sleep on hard mattresses and to take cold showers, a health regimen that evolved into hydropathy, or the “water cure.” By the 1840s, Graham was a well-known and eccentric resident of Northampton, Massachusetts, where an 1851 news article derided him as “Dr. Bran, the philosopher of sawdust pudding.” His theories influenced many later diet reformers, including the Kellogg brothers and C.W. Post, who pioneered the invention of corn flakes, Cheerios, and other breakfast cereals. This recipe for graham bread appeared in a Hydropathic Cook-Book in 1855.
Trall, Robert Thacher. [Graham Bread Recipe from “The New Hydropathic Cook-Book”.] Fowlers and Wells, 1855. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l01-002/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
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