On November 27, 1978, disgruntled former Supervisor Dan White shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in San Francisco’s City Hall. He fled the building, surrendering to the authorities a short time later. The murders shocked the nation.
Dan White’s trial drew the national media. The verdict—that White was guilty not of first-degree murder but rather of voluntary manslaughter, which carried a much lighter sentence, sent shockwaves through the media. As reported in the papers, a key argument of the defense was that White had consumed massive amounts of sugary foods, which had contributed to his “diminished capacity,” which in turn led to his killing spree.
A reporter infamously dubbed it “the Twinkie Defense.”
The vortex of debate and discussion that followed resulted in a changing of California laws and new scientific studies on the relationship between unhealthy food and crime. Is it possible, clinicians asked, that junk food could cause a person to lose their moral compass, to become violent?
In a series of studies conducted on juvenile offenders by criminologist Dr. Stephen J. Schoenthaler, high sugar and high fat foods were swapped out with healthier foods. He’d later summarize his findings thus: “There was a 47% reduction in documented offenses, infractions, and other indicators of antisocial behavior. These included reductions in overt violence, acts of theft, verbal aggression, and insubordination to corrections personnel.” Though not definitive, such research indicates a possible link between criminal behavior and diet.
There is an interesting, longer history regarding the relationship between food and mental derangement in our country. It started when America’s most famous physician of the Revolution, Benjamin Rush, argued that excessive food and drink could lead to all manner of illness, both mental and physical.
In the decades ahead, writers on both sides of the Atlantic chimed in on the ways that food could ruin one’s physical and mental health. The famed poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, for example, argued that animal products were “at the root of all evil” and advocated a strict vegetarian diet.
So-called “food faddism” took off thanks to Sylvester Graham. A former minister from Connecticut, Graham struck upon the idea that the American diet was not just unhealthy but was actively causing physical and mental “debility.”
Central to Graham’s argument was the idea that the stomach was the center of our body’s wellness system. “Irritants” to the stomach would lead, inevitably, to just about every disease. For Graham, these irritants included meat, spices (including salt and pepper), sweets, tea, coffee, alcohol, and, worst of all, white bread.
Graham became obsessed with white bread. Because it was processed and refined, and not made lovingly at home from scratch, it was ruinous. In his best-selling Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making, he asserted that commercially made white bread literally destroyed one’s health. Only whole wheat bread can be called the “staff of life.” Bemused, Ralph Waldo Emerson dubbed him “the prophet of bran bread and pumpkins.” His followers, “Grahamites,” made “Graham bread” using unrefined whole wheat, and swore that it made them healthy.
Graham also strongly disapproved of other “irritants” such as lustful thoughts, masturbation, and sex (in or outside of marriage). He thought that physical passion of any sort could only lead to more debility. Vegetables, whole wheat, pure water, and sexual abstinence were key to good living for him.
Eventually, Graham’s ideas and books went out of circulation. Few of us remember him today. Few connect the popular wheat cracker named after him with this nineteenth-century food faddist.
But Graham’s legacy endures. His followers established journals, retreats, and health spas. These popular items and places focused on vegetarian diets, whole wheat, and sexual abstinence. One follower, Caleb Jackson, created a Graham flour-based cold cereal and called it “Granula.” It was the first mass-produced cold cereal. Later, another Graham follower, John Harvey Kellogg, created his own version, and called it “Granola” (Jackson sued him for infringement). He pivoted to corn flakes, and the rest is history.
Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanitarium (a word he invented, a riff on “sanatorium”) in Michigan took Graham’s ideas to great heights. It assiduously focused on vegetarianism, whole wheat, and sexual abstinence. Though it eventually went under, in its heyday, the “San” was the place to go to recharge and refresh one’s physical and mental health.
Today, the health food industry owes much to Sylvester Graham and his ilk. When we think about how a bad diet might make us ill, we channel Graham. In a way, the Twinkie Defense counted on Graham’s belief that bad food led to poor health outcomes—in Dan White’s case, “diminished capacity.” This sounds suspiciously like Graham’s “debility.”
