The ‘original’ origins of graham crackers are shocking — here’s what they’re all about

It’s a sex orgy.

People are shocked to discover Graham Cracker’s sexual history as a salacious backstory resurfaces online.

“I need you to Google why graham crackers were invented,” one surprised person wrote on X . “Apparently this has been circulating on Twitter for years, but I’m just seeing this now for the first time.”

Another shared a brief summary of the story, adding: “Just found out graham crackers were invented by Presbyterian ministers as a cure for fornication. A lot of you need to start eating graham crackers.”

Experts and historians previously told The Washington Post that graham crackers were invented by Sylvester Graham, a 19th-century Puritan pastor, to curb “carnal desires” for sex, which he believed It can cause symptoms ranging from headaches to confusion.

But rather than simply preaching abstinence, Graham created something else entirely designed to curb people’s sexual desires and “cure” them: a mild, cookie-like snack.

Graham rose to prominence in the Presbyterian church, but after a sickly childhood, he always had a fascination with health.

He studied the human body at Amherst College—although he dropped out because he couldn’t make friends—and soon realized that his life’s mission was to prevent the evils of sex, excess, and what he saw as the unhealthy effects of lust.

His crusade was his most fervent cause, as he claimed that such behavior “stimulated the brain more than natural excitement” and even led to insanity.

“He was running a strong anti-masturbation campaign. He said, ‘If you eat meat, you’re behaving like an animal, and you should avoid these types of primal instincts, like sexual urges,'” Adam D. Schepp said Adam D. Shprintzen, who writes about the cookie’s strange origins. He tells the story in his book The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of the Reform Movement in America, 1817-1921.

Believing that food played a key role in regulating sexual desire and believing that foods such as meat, coffee, and spices stimulated sexual desire, he began advocating a bland, whole-grain diet to “cleanse” the body.

The crusader even founded one of the first vegetarian movements in the United States, urging followers to abstain from meat altogether, believing that wholesome, simple food would promote healthy, chaste living.

In 1829, Graham took his mission one step further and invented what would become the graham cracker.

The first graham cracker is a flavorless, dry whole wheat cracker made from finely ground unbleached wheat flour and coarsely ground wheat bran.

After Nabisco acquired the brand in the 1890s, graham crackers transformed into the sweet, honey-filled snack we know today.

They added sugar and cinnamon, and the dry, unappetizing cookie was reborn as a tastier snack, paving the way for it to eventually become the basis of s’mores.

Graham believed that the mildness of the original cookies could curb sexual urges, especially in adolescent boys.

“He talked about how cookies could help curb sexual desire, especially in adolescent boys. He also gained some die-hard followers,” said Springtson, who is also a history professor at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Graham’s philosophy spread in the 1830s, giving rise to the so-called “Graham Diet,” a tasteless diet of whole-grain bread and starch with a strict ban on anything flavorful – meat, coffee, alcohol and tobacco.

His followers, known as Grahamites, are convinced that his diet can cure everything from depression to nervousness, and some even claim it improved their sex lives—not by encouraging sexual desire, but by suppressing it sexual desire.

“As twisted as he was, from a medical point of view he was ahead of his time in some ways. We now know that diet is related to good health and that too much meat and alcohol is not good for us,” Shplintson said explain.

His lectures on sex made some people so uncomfortable that an angry mob of butchers and bakers once protested against his teachings.

They claimed his health crusade was bad for business, and men found his candid discussions of sexual repression particularly disturbing — especially when women were present.

“Wow. This is a wild little rabbit hole. Of course, things seem a little more complicated than that. Whole wheat crackers appear to be part of a balanced diet designed to reduce sex drive. It should be noted that this diet is also vegetarian, ” one obsessed Twitter user wrote after learning about the treat’s history, while another joked that brown cookies could have unintended consequences.

“I loved eating them as a kid, maybe that influenced me,” they wrote.