Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 13:36:52 -0800
Reply-To: warmerwagen@HOTMAIL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Robert Keezer <warmerwagen@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: What kind of crackers do you keep in your van?
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Khong Guan Family Crackers
Robert K
1982 Westfalia
1987 Wolfsburg
----- Original Message -----
Wrom: VLMHAALPTCXLY
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 12:56 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: What kind of crackers do you keep in your van?
I like Stoned Wheat Thins. I also like Graham Crackers, especially after
reading about Sylvester Graham, perhaps the first of a long line of food
ayatollahs.
:)
Alistair
Sylvester Graham was born in 1794, probably the 17th child of a 70 year old
father who was a minister of the gospel. At age two, Sylvester was an orphan
and a ward of charity. We don't know much about what happened to him until
at age 32, he showed up and enrolled at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
There he argued with everyone who would stay around long enough to listen to
him and gave long speeches to disrupt many of his classes. He was kicked out
of Amherst and had a nervous breakdown or his nervous breakdown caused him
to be kicked out of Amherst.
His nurse, Miss Sara Eads, took care of him and as a reward for bringing him
back to health, he married her. She soon became pregnant and he had to
support a family, but the only skill he had was his big mouth, so he went to
the Presbyterian Church and begged them to make him a minister. They
ordained him, even though he had no formal education. He was such a
convincing speaker, they sent him to Newark, New Jersey, where he became
famous as a fire-breathing minister who warned about the dangers of alcohol
and became known as the "suppressor of the Use of Ardent Spirits." A major
problem was that while he was preaching the evils of alcohol, his wife,
Sara, was tippling, and not always privately.
While on a visit to Philadelphia, he met members of the Young Bible
Christian Church. They preached abstinence from meat as well as alcohol. And
Sylvester Graham became an ardent vegetarian. He became convinced that God
did not want people to kill animals. He became very interested in health and
the leading killer in 1830 in the United States was dyspepsia, which means
an upset stomach. Doctors felt that people died because they had unhealthy
bowels. He felt that bowel problems were caused by lack of bulk in the diet
and every Sunday, from his pulpit, he screamed about the benefit of bran. He
felt that God did not want people to split the wheat kernel.
In 1830 nobody knew that 100% of the B vitamins, almost all the minerals and
phytochemicals are in the germ that is removed when a miller makes white
flour. He was truly a prophet, way ahead of this time. He became one of the
most popular lecturers and screamed about the dangers of alcohol, white
flour, gluttony, meat. He advocated bathing, which upset many of his fellow
Americans because they took baths once a year, but only if they needed one.
He stated that lewdness, excess sex and eating chicken caused cholera. To
combat white flour, he created the Graham cracker, coarsely ground wheat
that was bathed in molasses and cooked before it could turn rancid.
Sylvester Graham was treated by his countrymen as either a nut or a
religious man. But he preached against the dangers of alcohol, white flour,
meat, gluttony, obesity and body odor. You may not agree with some of his
views, but on the subject of flour...................Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
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