Consumerism: Ripple Effect

When talking about food, there is no food with a stranger and more interesting history, or that had a larger rippling effect on consumerism than the graham cracker. Beginning in the 18th century with the birth of the final of his seventeen siblings, Sylvester Graham. His father died soon after his birth and his other was locked away for hysteria, so he spent his childhood moving from house to house usually with a family that owned a bar. This is where his deep hatred for alcohol and sex was fostered. As he grew up he became a baptist minister and when the Second Great Awakening began, he was already developing his new Grahamite diet. It would contain no sugar, no white flour, no alcohol, and NO FLAVOUR. Why such extremes you might ask, and that would be because such foods are obviously the reason people have sexual urges, especially those to masturbate which Graham thought of as the ultimate evil. This while sounding absolutely ludicrous to modern day Americans made perfect sense to 17th century America and became the first health craze.
So when it came time for the next health craze as the 1910's roll around, the graham cracker and the closely related Grahamite invented Kellogg's Flake are the perfect place to start. "Reducing" becomes a fad and women begin to panic that maybe they aren't happy with their bodies. So women begin finding recipes and and cooking "healthier" meals for their families. But as the 1920's roll around plastic is now able to be molded, and can be airtight, which means food can be prepared and then shipped. This is a perfect opportunity and Kellogg's, Nabisco, and countless other companies jump at the opportunity to sell their pre-made food as the next food in the reducing frenzy. So many daily activities changed as a product of this, the way people shopped, cooked, ate, and viewed each other, all began changing with the food and advertising industry.
That is a lot of change in a very short amount of time, so here is a short recap of the cause and effect chain that caused the food and advertisement industry to forever change. Invented to cure people of masturbation, the graham cracker and subsequent diet became the first health craze. Time passed and people needed a new health craze that came in the form of exercise and "snake oil" pills. Plastic became useable in the food industry and the same crackers and flakes that started the first health craze in the seventeenth century, became the driving forces of health food advertisement.