Did You Know Why Graham Crackers And Cornflakes Were Invented?

So, on this Hump Day here’s a piece of news that you may or may not have known. You know what graham crackers and cornflakes are right? A pretty bland, tasteless, boring ‘snack’ (if you can even call it that, cornflakes aren’t real cereal!). Well, it turns out, there’s a reason for that! It’s because they were invented to *drum roll* stop masturbation!

Have your eyes recovered from rolling into the back of your head yet? Great, then let’s check out some of the facts. According to an absolutely bizarro article published by Buzzfeed graham crackers and cornflakes were invented during the witch-burning, slave-owning 1800’s (God Bless America right?).

During that time in history, giving in to your sexual urges — especially masturbation — was believed to cause everything from headaches to epilepsy to actual insanity (This is an actual quote by Buzzfeed, but it also sounds like present-day somewhere).

The man responsible for inventing the graham cracker was actually a pastor – Reverend Sylvester Graham of Connecticut, to be exact, who invented the graham cracker as a way to prevent sexual urges. (???) An active anti-sex proponent he claimed that a bland diet would curb sexual urges (kind of like an anti-aphrodisiac I guess).

Unluckily enough for us, he was around long enough to inspire a certain man – the inventor of cornflakes – Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. He was so anti-sex that he and his wife never even consummated their marriage (the poor woman).

In his book, Plain Facts for Old and Young: Embracing the Natural History and Hygiene of Organic Life, Kellogg recorded 39 symptoms a masturbator may experience, including defective development, bashfulness, stiff joints, fondness for spicy foods (oof!), acne, palpitations, and epilepsy.

In the late 1800s, Kellogg argued that a bland diet could prevent your ghastly sexual urges, suggesting that one primarily eats grains, nuts, and cereal, including his very own concoction: cornflakes. You might think it’s a marketing gimmick but this man was serious. He even advocated mutilating one’s private parts (sick stuff). So the next time

So the next time you have a bowl of cornflakes or make a smore (let’s be honest, no one really eats a graham cracker) just think about why they’re there – and restrain those sexual urges (jk, go ham)!