Graham was ordained a Presbyterian minister in New Jersey; his first congregation was in Philadelphia, where he mingled with and learned from Quakers, temperance advocates and vegetarians – notably, members of the Bible Christian Church, an English sect that has established a church in Philadelphia.
Having overcome a lengthy illness in the early 1820s, by 1829 Graham began preaching about a variety of reformist ideals throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Graham believed that a high-fiber, natural food diet would remedy cholera, alcoholism, premature aging, violence, sexual abuses and digestive ills.
His most famous advice was that thick, coarse bread, baked at home and eaten daily should be the mainstay of every diet.
In 1829, Graham invented what would become known as ‘Graham bread, made from unsifted flour and free of chemicals such as chlorine. He believed his bread, made from the whole of the wheat and coarsely ground, known as ‘dyspepsia or temperance bread’ was best when eaten a day old.
Students at Williams College, Wesleyan University and Oberlin College lived by Graham’s brown-bread doctrine.
The Graham cracker became a staple in many nineteenth-century households, and from 1837 to 1839 the Graham Journal of Health and Longevity edited by David Campbell, prompted the Graham system.
Who is Sylvester Graham?
