CORN FLAKES WERE INVENTED TO SUPPRESS SEXUAL DESIRES
John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) was a zealot with unwavering devotion to his cause. He believed in “biologic living”. Above all else he advocated for a bland diet, totally devoid of taste. It included vegetarianism, minimal dairy products and eggs, no alcohol or tobacco, no coffee, tea or condiments. He believed spicy foods promoted carnal urges. His grain-based diet was meant to suppress sexual desires and to improve patient digestion. He wanted to stamp out what he considered a grievous sin against God, masturbation.
HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF AN ADVENTIST SANITARIUM
He was an inventor, businessman and a dedicated Seventh Day Adventist. He supported Eugenics, an ideology that sought to enhance humanity through selective breeding. Having gone to medical school, he became president of an Adventist sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. He immediately set about putting his beliefs into practice with his patients. They were so miserable with his prescribed diet that he and his brother, Will Keith Kellogg started to experiment on alternate food options.
HE FOUNDED A COMPANY TO PRODUCE FOOD HE BELIEVED IN
He and Will Keith founded the Sanitas Food Company with the intent of manufacturing food products that could support their belief system. In 1894, they developed the world’s first flaked product, Granose Wheat Flakes by accident. This occurred when they forgot about a batch of cooked wheat sitting out which they had intended to roll into bread. When they finally remembered and put it through the rollers and baked the stale dough, it turned into crispy flakes. That lead to them going on to develop corn flakes in 1898. A longer life corn flake was created in 1902.
They started to sell their products by mail order to former patients, quickly moving to advertising on billboards and in newspapers.
C.W. POST FORMS A COMPETING COMPANY
A former patient, of Kellogg, C. W. Post, formed a competing company manufacturing Grape Nuts based upon Kellogg’s granola biscuit product. He then developed Postum; a cereal based coffee substitute derived from Kellogg’s coffee substitute. His company immediately prospered by adding sugar to its products. The general public embraced his sweetened cereal.
HIS BROTHER WAS AMBITIOUS
John Harvey’s only goal in starting the company was to change America’s eating habits. Will Keith was more ambitious. After seeing Post’s business boom, he wanted to emulate his success. John Harvey was too much of a fanatic to care. His only interest was changing American’s eating habits.
Like C. W. Post, Will Keith wanted to popularize his product throughout the country and beyond. In order to do this, he decided to add sugar to the corn flakes, to make it more commercially successful, as Post had done. John Harvey would have no part in it. He considered sugar, the “white devil”. Will Keith fought his brother tooth and nail believing adding both sugar and salt to corn flakes would make it more widely accepted.
Angry that John Harvey rejected his ideas, Will Keith purchased commercial rights to the corn flakes recipe in 1906. He created the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company and mass-produced corn flakes with added sugar. The company experienced rapid success and effectively launched the mass-produced dry breakfast cereal industry in America
THE BROTHERS WENT TO WAR OVER SUGAR
John was enraged and produced his own cereals under the Kellogg name. Will Keith sued his brother for the rights to the Kellogg name. A bitter long drawn out court battle resulted in a legendary showdown between the brothers reaching the Michigan Supreme Court. In the end, Will Keith was victorious and he won exclusive rights to the Kellogg name. The brothers never spoke again.
WHAT AMERICA WAS EATING IN THE 19TH CENTURY
Americans were engorging themselves on strongly seasoned meats, potatoes and desserts. As long as they could afford it, they wanted meat, and they wanted it with every meal. At that time, each American was eating up to 175 pounds of meat each year, mostly cured pork. Above all else, sugar was the most treasured thing on the menu. Fruit pies were frequently eaten with all three meals. The whole country was suffering from indigestion.
The answer to indigestion was eating a simpler diet. In 1863, the first cereal was invented by James Caleb Jackson, “granula”. In 1867, Sylvester Graham invented the graham cracker
Neither Kellogg’s invention of corn flakes nor Jackson’s development of granula were the breakfast cereal we can buy in the supermarket today. They were completely tasteless and hard as rocks with many people often cracking their teeth while eating the cereal.
PEOPLE WERE READY TO START EATING SIMPLER
Kellogg extensively lectured and wrote books on his diet theories, spreading the word on the benefits of a bland diet. He wrote, “To eat biologically is simply to eat scientifically, to eat normally”. He firmly believed that extensive seasoning and sauces, “irritate the nerves and react upon the sexual organs”.
CORN FLAKES STARTED A FOOD CRAZE
He tried to guard his invention by patenting it. Others quickly figured out a few tweaks they could make to cereal without infringing on his patent. They quickly jumped into the cereal market. Companies then opened in the hundreds, all wanting a piece of the action.
What deeply wounded him was the fact that his two most successful rivals were his brother and former patient. Another reason for the success of cereal was its convenience. After the Industrial Revolution, people moved from farms to cities, rose early and worked long hours in factories. Cereal presented a ready-to-eat solution. Both C. W. Post and Will Keith Kellogg were making a fortune.
WILL KEITH TOSSES HIS SON OUT OF THE BUSINESS
In 1915, Will Keith invented Bran Flakes. In 1916, his son, John L. Kellogg, who had entered the business, developed All-Bran. They changed the name of the company in 1922 to the Kellogg Cereal Company. In 1925, Will Keith threw his son out of the business. Firstly, due to John L. divorcing his wife and marrying one of the office girls, and secondly, because John L. wanted to explore producing oat products which Will Keith refused to do.
JOHN HARVEY MISSED HIS BROTHER
John Harvey invented Rice Krispies in 1928. He founded several cereal ventures which all struggled producing tasteless cereals.
Later in his life, after many years being estranged, John Harvey wanted to reestablish a relationship with his brother, . He wrote him a letter which was, unbeknownst to him, never sent by his secretary. She had taken it upon herself not to send it because she had determined the letter demeaned him.
THE BROTHER’S DEATHS
When John Harvey died in 1943, he left his entire estate to the Betterment Foundation, an organization devoted to eugenics and racial segregation.
In 1951, Will Keith died leaving controlling interest in his company to his charitable foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation. At that time, the company was the world leader in the manufacturing of cereal.
