‘Primal’ origins of graham crackers are a shocker — it’s all about ‘the urge to have sex’

It was a sex crack-er-down.

People are shocked to discover the sex-fueled history of graham crackers as the salacious backstory resurfaces online.

 “I need you all to go Google why graham crackers were invented,” one surprised person wrote on X. “Apparently this went around on Twitter a few years ago but I am just now seeing this for the first time.”

Sharing a simple summary of the story, another added: “Just discovered Graham Crackers were invented by a Presbyterian minister to cure licentiousness. A lot of y’all need to start eating Graham Crackers.”

Graham crackers were invented by Sylvester Graham, a puritanical 19th-century minister, in an attempt to tamper the “carnal desire” for sex he believed caused everything from headaches to insanity, experts and historians previously told The Post.

But instead of simply preaching abstinence, Graham created something else entirely in hopes of quenching people’s sexual appetite and “curing” them: a bland, cracker-like snack.

Graham rose to prominence in the Presbyterian Church but was always obsessed with health after a childhood spent as a frail and sickly child.

He studied the human body at Amherst College — though he dropped out after failing to make friends — and soon realized that his life’s mission was to prevent the evils of sex, indulgence and what he believed to be the unhealthy effects of lust.

His crusade was his most fervent cause as he claimed the act could “inflame the brain more than natural arousal” and even lead to insanity.

“He was on a strong anti-masturbation crusade. He said, ‘If you’re eating meat, you’re acting like an animal and you should avoid those types of primal instincts — like the urge to have sex,’” said Adam D. Shprintzen, who wrote about the cracker’s odd origin story in his book, “The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921.”

He believed food played a critical role in tempering sexual desires and argued that food like meat, coffee and spices excited carnal urges, so he began promoting an unexciting whole-grain diet to “purify” the body. 

The crusader even launched one of America’s first vegetarian movements, urging followers to swear off meat entirely, believing that wholesome, simple food would foster a healthy, chaste life.

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

The first graham cracker was a tasteless, dry, whole-wheat biscuit made of finely ground, unbleached wheat flour and coarsely ground wheat bran.

The graham cracker’s transformation into the sweet, honeyed snack we know today happened after Nabisco acquired the brand in the 1890s.

They added sugar and cinnamon, and the dry, unappetizing cracker was reborn as a more palatable snack, paving the way for its eventual role as the foundation for s’mores.

Graham believed the original cracker’s blandness would keep sensual urges at bay, particularly in adolescent boys. 

“He spoke about how the cracker could help suppress sexual desire, particularly in adolescent boys. And he gained some hard-core followers,” said Shprintzen, who is also a professor of history at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Graham’s philosophy spread in the 1830s, giving rise to the so-called “Graham Diet,” a regime of tasteless, whole-grain bread and starches, with everything flavorful — meat, coffee, alcohol and tobacco— strictly forbidden. 

His followers, called Grahamites, were fervent in their belief that his diet could cure all kinds of ailments from depression to nervousness, and some even claimed it improved their sex lives — not by encouraging lust, but by suppressing it.

“As warped as he was, from a medical standpoint, he was ahead of his game in some ways. We know now that diet is connected to physical health, and too much meat and alcohol isn’t good for us,” Shprintzen said.

His lectures on sex were so uncomfortable for some that angry mobs of butchers and bakers once protested his teachings.

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

“Wow. This is a wild little rabbit hole. Of course, it seems to be a little more complicated than that. Graham Crackers appear to have been a part of a balanced total diet intended to reduce sexual urges. And it should be noted that that diet was also vegetarian,” a fascinated Tweeter wrote after learning about the treat’s history, with another person joking that the brown biscuit may have led to unexpected consequences.

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