Breakfast Cereal Cultural History Dustin Goldberger May 18, 2010 A Spoonful of History: Health, Wealth, and The Rise of The American Breakfast Cereal Objectives 1. Provide a comprehensive history of the dominant players in the breakfast cereal industry, from its 19 th century origins as a health food alternative to its current status as a part of the mainstream American diet. 2. Identify and discuss how a discourse that paints breakfast cereal as a health food competes with corporate needs to drive profits. 3. Assess the breakfast cereal industry’s engagement with consumers. This includes notable citizen protest against Big Cereal and the industry’s response. Summary of Findings I. Family First: The 19 th Century Origins of America’s Breakfast Staple The discourse surrounding the nutritious value of breakfast cereal has a rich historical trajectory. While today’s consumers question the motives of cereal executives who claim to provide healthy products, those who first produced cereal products seem to have sincerely felt they were essential to household health. In the mid 1800’s, the American diet was in a state of disorder. As the frontier expanded, Americans needed cheap ways to preserve food over long journeys, and could not afford to keep around perishable fruits and vegetables. For many, mornings in the West began with whiskey and men commonly came “to expect more than three sorts of meat” during supper, which was a social affair that could last as long as seven hours. 1 Not surprisingly, such a rich diet put a chokehold on American health. Nineteenth century Americans came to recognize the “difficulty of digestion or fermentation in the stomach or guts” that came from such eating as “Dyspepsia”, an affliction that had spread across the nation. 2 Back east, America’s Second Great Awakening was taking the public by storm, with Christian ideas of wellness and spirituality underpinning the dangers of over eating. One particular religious zealot was determined to reform the American diet. Sylvester Graham’s seminal A Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making of 1837 , argued that civilization has always had an intimate relationship with baking cereal and other grains, and that there is an relationship between the “quality of the bread and the moral character of a family.” 3 Already, a discourse emerged linking cereal to a family’s nutritional and emotional well-being. The ability to provide bread for one’s family was fundamentally associated with nutrition and love. Indeed, Graham had very specific expectations for how bread should be prepared. He noted commercial bread makers removed bran from 1 Richard H. Shryock, “Sylvester Graham and The Popular Health Movement,” Organization of American Historians (Sep. 1931): 173. 2 Scott Bruce and Bill Crawford, Cerealizing America: The Unsweetened Story of American Breakfast Cereal (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1995), 4. 3 Sylvester Graham, A Treatise on American Bread, And Bread Making (Boston: Light & Learns, 1837), 105. the flour and the end product was “very rarely a wholesome diet.” 4 The “adulterated” breads produced in bakeries robbed food of its nutrients. Whole wheat bread was the only healthy proper option. Thus, bread making should go back to basics, and should exclusively be a domestic chore. Around the same time, Dr. James Caleb Jackson of New York was also interested in tackling the Dyspepsia epidemic. In 1863, Jackson created a “Graham flour” concoction known as Granula. His whole-wheat bricks were so tough they needed to be soaked up with milk. 5 Dr. Jackson needed a way to make the idea of pairing Granula and milk palatable. One method he used was to articulate Granula’s health benefits in medical journals, such as The Training of Children, or, How to Have Them Healthy, Handsome and Happy in 1879. He suggested that mother’s pair milk with “bread, pudding and porridge…ground into what I call an unbolted meal, or Graham flour.” 6 Like Graham, Dr. Jackson believed consuming cereal strengthened the family unit. Amy Vilesis’s Kitchen Literacy shows that a mother’s intimate knowledge of the food at her family’s breakfast table would quickly diminish. Vilesis argues a “covenant of ignorance” developed between the American public and those in the food industry. Americans no longer were as connected to their food as “fewer and fewer people with more machines delivered food products from farther and farther away…especially after the transcontinental railroad linked the coasts…” 7 While Sylvester Graham and Dr. Jackson felt cereal production should be done at the local level, industrialization brought change. Production methods would now be less transparent as commercial cereal manufacturing grew to accommodate a hungry nation. II. Cereal City: 20 th Century Competition in Battle Creek, Michigan A few years after Dr. Jackson debuted his Granula recipe, breakfast cereal would come to dominate the interests of a small Midwestern town called Battle Creek, Michigan. Interestingly, religious values were also at the heart of public life here. In 1855, Battle Creek became home to the world headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventists; a community of Christian fundamentalists concerned that dietary unbalance hampered spiritual fulfillment. As historian Gerald Carson notes, the group’s “agitation over food provided an effective propaganda background for the commercial breakfast- food industry.” 8 The Adventists encouraged Americans to “Rely on graham bread, fruit, and vegetables...Drink only water. Trust in the healing power of God. 9 It is significant that “Graham flour” was recognized as a health food in Battle Creek by 1863. Cereal’s association with nutrition had now transcended its regional identity and became embedded in the national discourse on wellness. One Adventist particularly interested in whole-wheat flour was none other than Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, a physician and inventor. In 1866, Dr. J.H. Kellogg became the superintendent of the Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek (later the Battle Creek Sanitarium). The center was 4 Graham, A Treatise on American Bread, And Bread Making, 90. 5 Bruce and Crawford, Cerealizing America , 8. 6 James Caleb Jackson, The Training of Children; or, How to Have Them Healthy, Handsome, and Happy (New York: Dansville Livingston, 1872), 34. 7 Ann Vileisis Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get It Back (Washington: Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2008), 8. 8 Gerald Carson Cornflake Crusade (New York: Rinehart, 1957), 11. 9 Bruce and Crawford, Cerealizing America , 11. known for its technologically advanced medical clinical, and its emphasis on a “low calorie, low-meat diet.” 10 A prolific writer, Kellogg’s work The Itinerary of a Breakfast details his concern for nutritious eating. He argued that “The artificial conditions of civilized life, sedentary habits, concentrated foodstuffs, false modesty, ignorance and neglect of bodily needs have produced a crippled stated of the colon as an almost universal condition among civilized men and women.” 11 Kellogg’s fame soon grew, and his sanitarium filled with patients from all over the globe. J.H. Kellogg wanted to help improve their diets, and in 1895 he and his brother Will created the first flaked wheat cereal. 12 As the Kellogg brothers distributed their new “granose” flakes, a man named Charles Post was experimenting with his wheat shredder across town. Charles Post was a master salesman and inventor with hopes of breaking into the health business. After his offer to help the Kellogg brothers market their products was rejected, in 1892 Post decided to start a competing sanitarium in Battle Creek. Post’s first product was a coffee substitute called “Postum”, and it launched the same year as the Kellogg wheat flakes. “Postum contained wheat, bran, and molasses. 13 Post’s approach to marketing “Postum” differed from the tradition of local cereal production. As we have seen, those that first developed cereal products were genuinely interested in creating a healthful product. Whether motivated by a religious conviction to preserve the family or simply improve digestion, each inventor hoped to contribute to American wellness. However, by the end of the 19 th Century, American culture had changed considerably. The nation had entered an age of mass consumption, and industrialization created national demand for consumer goods. Post’s aggressive advertising tactics located him among a growing number of business leaders experimenting to drive profits. As the Post website proudly proclaims, Post “used marketing techniques that are now considered industry standard, but which were innovative for their time. These include extensive advertising coupons, free samples, product demonstrations, plant tours and recipe booklets.” 14 As producers went from focusing on diet to focusing on the dollar, their commitment to health became less frequently acknowledged. After Post’s “Postum” and “Grape Nuts” became wildly successful, the breakfast cereal industry exploded with competition. With growing competition, the taste of cereal became an increasingly important selling point for the companies. William Keith Kellogg, Dr. Kellogg's brother, wanted to capture Post’s success. When he invented corn flakes in 1902, he added sugar. Dr. Kellogg was furious, and the disagreement lead W.K to separate from his brother’s business. 15 In effect, nutritional concerns were no longer the company’s bottom line. Kellogg’s emphasis on materialism lead the leader of the town’s Adventist Church to declare, “the Lord is not very well pleased with Battle Creek.” 16 10 Carson, Cornflake Crusade , 92. 11 J.H. Kellogg The Itinerary of A Breakfast (Battle Creek, Modern Medicine Publishing Co, 1918), Preface. 12 Carson, Cornflake Crusade , 138. 13 Battle Creek/Calhoun County Convention and Visitors Bureau, History of the Breakfast Cereal Industry 14 Post Foods, LLC , “Post Heritage”, http://www.postcereals.com/post_heritage/#/period/1/. 15 Bruce and Crawford, Cerealizing America , 5.