Book Notes: The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek

This book was a Christmas present from my Aunt. It is an interesting account of the two Kellogg brothers, John Harvey and Will Keith. Full of surprising facts, here are a few I found interesting:

1. According to this book, "It is impossible for someone born after World War I to appreciate the stunning sensation ready-to-eat breakfast cereals created at the beginning of the 20th century."

2. Starting as a child, John Harvey Kellogg was groomed by the founders of the Seventh Day Adventists to take a leading role in the church, but was later excommunicated.

3. J.H. Kellogg believed so firmly in the benefits of sexual purity that he never consummated his marriage, but he and his wife raised 42 adopted children.

4. The word "granola" originates from a lawsuit against the Kelloggs for stealing the idea of "granula" - basically baked oat crumbs, from another doctor, so the Kelloggs changed the name of their product.

5. The reason corn flakes turn to mush so easily is that J.H. Kellogg thought that the more "predigested" a food was when you swallowed it, the better. He actually wanted to grind up the flakes into crumbs, but Will convinced him not to.

6. In addition to corn flakes, J.H. Kellogg was the original American inventor/popularizer of peanut butter, soy milk, an early form of Metamucil, and bran flakes. 

7. Post Cereals was started by an early Kellogg employee who stole their recipes.

8. Quaker Oats (not a Kellogg product) was the first cereal to come in individual packages (instead of being sold wholesale in barrels) and is basically the same product today, packaging included, as it was in 1887.

9. Shredded wheat (also not originally a Kellogg product) was invented by the general counsel of the Union Pacific Railroad, who experimented with cereal making in his spare time.

10. Most of the original modern medical knowledge regarding the workings of the human stomach was discovered and collected by a Michigan doctor (not J.H. Kellogg) in 1822 after he cared for a man who had been shot in the stomach. The wound never fully healed, leaving a fistula, or a hole directly directly into the stomach. Over the next 10 years the doctor poured various foods into the hole and observed their digestion.