I was enjoying some graham crackers last night and got to thinking, “man, if graham crackers are called that because they’re made with graham flour, and graham crackers are delicious, why don’t we have more stuff made with graham flour? Where’s the graham cake and graham cookies?”

So I consulted the Wikipedia, only to find that the history of the graham cracker was way more interesting than I expected.

From the Wikipedia: Graham cracker.

Graham crackers were invented in 1829 in Bound Brook, New Jersey, by a Presbyterian minister and early dietary reformer named Sylvester Graham. Graham accurately argued that white bread from commercial bakeries, growing in popularity at the time, contained unhealthy additives and lacked the nutritious value of bread made from whole-grain flour.

Only Graham had more in mind than helping Americans enjoy the cardiac and gastroenterological benefits of a high-fiber diet. He believed that healthier lifestyles would cleanse his congregants of lustful thoughts, and in particular quell one indecent but ever-popular habit he referred to as “self-abuse.”

So to stop people from touching themselves, Graham began producing flour that incorporated course-ground wheat germ and bran in addition to the fine-ground endosperm of white flour. From this he created graham crackers — originally marketed as “Dr. Graham’s Honey Biskits” — to be a staple of his eponymous diet.

Graham’s followers, called Grahamites, reaped the rewards of frequent bathing and the daily brushing of teeth — neither yet a common custom in the early 19th century — believing uncleanliness to be a source of impure thoughts. Per the Wikipedia, Graham “felt that all excitement was unhealthful, and spices were among the prohibited ingredients in his diet.” The Graham diet grew popular enough that it became mandated at Oberlin College, where a professor was fired for bringing contraband pepper to faculty meals.

The Grahamites ate tons of graham crackers and tried to suppress carnal urges until Graham himself died at age 57 in 1851. But Reverend Graham’s beliefs later caught on with the brothers Kellogg, who invented Corn Flakes in the 1890s in part because they thought their cereal would help extinguish sexual desire.

Yes, if you’re playing at home: Both graham crackers and Kellogg’s cereal are named for people who thought they could end the masturbation epidemic with bland foods.

Of course, the delicious graham crackers we enjoy today would have the Reverend Graham spinning in his grave (while taking care not to arouse himself in the process). Most mass-marketed graham crackers are made with far more sugar-type stuff and far less whole-wheat flour than the originals. Many do not use graham flour at all, which answers my graham-flour question that started the Wikipedia tangent.

And today the Internet delivers all sorts of vile and debased porn instantly to every corner of the country, and we coat graham crackers with an impious amount of sugar to serve them as breakfast cereal and crush them up to use as crusts for sinfully rich cheesecake. Because this is America, bro.