Breakfast Series, 2

Thinking Inside the Box

Question of the Week: Where did cereal come from and how does it affect our food system?

The first morning on the job at Know Your Farms, I walked into the kitchen looking for breakfast. I opened drawers, looked in cupboards, and checked the cabinets but I couldn’t find anything. Where was breakfast. It should stick out easily – after all, it comes in a big box, with some eye catching graphics, maybe a maze or crossword puzzle on the back. This is a staple in American households – how could it not be in the kitchen? What did these people eat for breakfast? Where was the cereal??

Over the past few weeks, I have learned that real food does not come out of a box. It is not the repetitious ritual of robotically shoveling spoonfuls of sugary coated stars and diamonds into your mouth. It does not involve gluing your eyes to a piece of cardboard, searching for a way to get through the maze that ends at the pot o’ gold. Real food is not represented by leprechauns, tigers, or elves. So how did our perception of food deteriorate from whole, fresh, prepared ingredients to a brightly colored box full of high fructose corn syrup? This week, I am tackling the question, “Where does cereal come from and how does it affect our food system?” This is a big question with many layers of questions to consider along the way, but the changes that allowed the breakfast table to transform to boxed cereals all occurred in a relatively short period of time.

It all starts with the number 1863, a monumental year for processed food. In 1863, packaged cereal was born. It was invented by James Caleb Jackson, a Seventh-Day Adventist and strong proponent of vegetarianism. The cereal consisted of tiny grains that Jackson named Granula, but it was hardly fast food. Granula had to sit overnight in order to be ready to eat. The next step combined making breakfast a packaged and quick meal. In 1977, John Harvey Kellogg created a wheat, oat, and cornmeal concoction he called Granola. These dark days of boxed cereal didn’t have the sugary kick or bright colors to keep anyone coming back for a second bowl (Kellogg actually created Granola for patients living in the sanitarium where he worked in Battle Creek, Michigan who had bowel problems). But this all changed, and out of human error, processed cereal became a success. One day, while Kellogg and his brother, Will Keith Kellogg, were rolling out his oat, grain, cornmeal mixture to make Granola, they left it on the oven too long and it turned into crisp flakes. Corn flakes and the Kellogg cereal company were born! The Kellogg Brothers were followed by Charles William Post, a patient at the sanitarium who was inspired by the Kellogg brothers’ success. General Mills, Quaker, Nestle, and other cereal companies were quick to follow.

Knowing how cereal got its start, only scratches the surface of the question, “Where did cereal come from and how does it affect our food system?” We still have to consider more questions – What made cereal become so popular so quickly? Who did cereal companies target? When did cereal go from the wheat, cornmeal, oat mixture that John Harvey Kellogg cooked up to bouncing colors and aisles full of every sugary flavor imaginable? To get your mind thinking about tomorrow’s blog, consider what commercials you remember watching as kid on Saturday morning. If you find yourself thinking about Tony the tiger, Toucan Sam, or Captain Crunch – you may know the topic of the next breakfast series.

Sources
http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/health/cereal.html
http://www.cuisinenet.com/digest/breakfast/cereal.shtml
http://www.mrbreakfast.com/article.asp?articleid=13