Abstract
Sylvester Graham might be the prototypical diet guru of today, save that he was born in 1794. Famous for preaching a regimen of abstention, he championed a vegetarian diet of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains well before the rise of modern biomedical science suggested the same. And although he was a Presbyterian minister, Graham brought Jacksonian temperance movements together with contemporary medicine to create a perspective on food and wellness that is still with us today. The chapter considers how Graham’s spiritual belief in his dietary philosophy is best illustrated in the first-person testimonials to the efficacy of his diet in battling the cholera epidemic of 1832, included in his self-published tract, The Aesculapian Tabletsof the Nineteenth Century.