Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I saw this Egg Man animation a couple of days ago and it made me truly think about eggs:

The whole reason we eat cereal for breakfast instead of eggs is because of one crackpot (okay, maybe two or three): Sylvester Graham. He was a dietary reformer in the 19th century. He wasn’t the first vegetarian or even the first prominent one, but he was America’s first vegetarian reformer. He believed vegetarianism was a cure for alcoholism and sexual urges (do we really NEED a cure for sexual urges? Isn’t that the OPPOSITE of what Viagra is for?). He was a strong proponent of the temperance movement and invented the graham cracker as a digestive biscuit. Graham was trying to find a healthy alternative to white bread, which is a problem in itself, but instead of turning to meat and eggs, he clung to his vegetarianism in an effort to stave off sexual depravity.

Sylvester Graham inspired another crackpot, John Harvey Kellogg and his entrepreneurial brother, Will Keith Kellogg. John Harvey was so intent on the cure of sexual urges and a vegetarian diet that he suggested that men who would not stop masturbating should endure circumcision WITHOUT anesthesia. His brother created Corn Flakes and served them to the unlucky souls who were sick enough to be in the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Charles W. Post was one of those unlucky souls and after a little snooping in their kitchens, stole their recipe for dry cereal and started a company of his own under his own name.

The whole reason I was raised on Captain Crunch and Fruity Pebbles is because of Temperance. The faulty reasoning that sex is bad AND eating less meat would make people not want to have sex (which might be the case, who knows) has shaped my body and my life. Instead of eating eggs and bacon for breakfast, I ate Fruit Loops.

How about we re-evalutate EVERYTHING that we’ve been told for over 100 years? We know that sex isn’t bad. Maybe vegetarianism isn’t good. Maybe Eggman is trying to tell us that we need to stop eating food made by a man who never consummated his marriage and used electricity to jolt urges out of the body. The more I learn about the origins of some foods and dietary ideas, the less valid they seem to me.