93. Corn Flakes

A wild origin story

How can such a tiny, bland little thing have such a wild origin story? It’s just a flake. Of corn. And yet Corn Flakes emerged from religious fervor and bitter lawsuits.

There were two brothers, John Harvey and Will Keith Kellogg. One was a doctor, and one was a capitalist. J.H. was charitable and eccentric; at his Seventh-day Adventist sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, patients were denied meat, alcohol, coffee, and tobacco. Bland food, he believed, could quiet dangerous appetites, including what he viewed as the sin of masturbation. Corn Flakes were invented as a weapon against desire. But J.H. had no interest in marketing his breakfast invention. He considered it a sin to profit off his cereal.

Will Keith—W.K.—had no such qualms. Taciturn and austere, he dragged his brother through a five-year legal battle, wrested control of the Kellogg name, and got to work advertising. His company became hugely profitable. He put his son in charge, then forced him and his successors out. In 1930, he gave a majority interest in the company to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, one of the largest charitable foundations in the world.

Battle Creek became the cereal capital of the world, as former patients like C.W. Post launched rival breakfast empires. But Kellogg’s flake contained a paradox: the cereal was intentionally designed to be easily digestible, which means it turns to sugar in the bloodstream almost immediately. The breakfast invented as a health food spawned America’s processed, sugary start to the day.

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Links:

• The Secret Ingredient in Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Is Seventh-Day Adventism – Howard Markel, Smithsonian Magazine, July 28, 2017

• The Battle of the Cornflakes – Richard Cavendish, History Today, February 2, 2006

• The Strange Story Behind Your Breakfast Cereal – Matthew Wills, JStor Daily, February 26, 2019

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This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 words on 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary. Through December 31, 2026.

I’m looking for ideas for this series — have something you’d like me to consider for inclusion? Please feel free to leave a comment!