FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

John Harvey Kellogg (February 26, 1852 – December 14, 1943) was an American businessman, inventor, and physician who was an advocate of theological modernism and the Progressive Movement. He was the director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, founded by members of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. It combined aspects of a European spa, a hydrotherapy institution, a hospital and high-class hotel. Kellogg treated the rich and famous, as well as the poor who could not afford other hospitals. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, his “development of dry breakfast cereals was largely responsible for the creation of the flaked-cereal industry.” Popular misconceptions falsely attribute various cultural practices, inventions, and historical events to Kellogg.

BREAKFAST CEREALS

Early Kellogg’s Corn Flakes advertisement

Around 1877, John H. Kellogg began experimenting to produce a softer breakfast food, something easy to chew. He developed a dough that was a mixture of wheat, oats, and corn. It was baked at high temperatures for a long period of time, to break down or “dextrinize” starch molecules in the grain. After it cooled, Kellogg broke the bread into crumbs. The cereal was originally marketed under the name “Granula” but this led to legal problems with James Caleb Jackson who already sold a wheat cereal under that name. In 1881, under threat of a lawsuit by Jackson, Kellogg changed the sanitarium cereal’s name to “Granola”. It was used initially by patients at the sanitarium, but slowly began to build up a following among former patients. In 1890, John formed the Sanitas Food Company to develop and market food products.

The Kelloggs are best known for the invention of the famous breakfast cereal corn flakes. The development of the flaked cereal in 1894 has been variously described by those involved: Ella Eaton Kellogg, John Harvey Kellogg, his younger brother Will Keith Kellogg, and other family members. There is considerable disagreement over who was involved in the discovery, and the role that they played. According to some accounts, Ella suggested rolling out the dough into thin sheets, and John developed a set of rollers for the purpose. According to others, John had the idea in a dream, and used equipment in his wife’s kitchen to do the rolling. It is generally agreed that upon being called out one night, John Kellogg left a batch of wheat-berry dough behind. Rather than throwing it out the next morning, he sent it through the rollers and was surprised to obtain delicate flakes, which could then be baked. Will Kellogg was tasked with figuring out what had happened, and recreating the process reliably. Ella and Will were often at odds, and their versions of the story tend to minimize or deny each other’s involvement, while emphasizing their own part in the discovery. The process that Kellogg had discovered, tempering, was to be a fundamental technique of the flaked cereal industry.

A patent for “Flaked Cereals and Process of Preparing Same” was filed on May 31, 1895, and issued on April 14, 1896, to John Harvey Kellogg as Patent No. 558,393. Significantly, the patent applied to a variety of types of grains, not just to wheat. John Harvey Kellogg was the only person named on the patent. Will later insisted that he, not Ella, had worked with John, and repeatedly asserted that he should have received more credit than he was given for the discovery of the flaked cereal.

During their first year of production, the Kelloggs sold tens of thousands of pounds of flaked cereal, marketing it as “Granose”. They continued to experiment using rice and corn as well as wheat, and in 1898 released the first batch of Sanitas Toasted Corn Flakes. A modified version with a longer shelf life was released in 1902. By that time, both “Granose Biscuits” and “Granose Flakes” were available.

Will Kellogg continued to develop and market flaked cereal. When he proposed adding sugar to the flakes, John would not agree to the change. So, in 1906, Will started his own company, the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company. This marked the start of a decades-long feud between the brothers. Will’s Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company eventually became the Kellogg Company, while John was denied the right to use the Kellogg name for his cereals.

They had other competitors as well, including C. W. Post. Post was treated at the Battle Creek Sanitarium between February 6 and November 9, 1891, and later by Christian Scientists whom he credited with his successful treatment. He settled in Battle Creek, opened his own sanitarium, the LaVita Inn, in March 1892, and founded his own dry foods company, Post Holdings. Post started selling Postum coffee substitute in 1895. He issued Grape-Nuts breakfast cereal, a mixture of yeast, barley and wheat, in January 1898. In January 1906, Post introduced “Elijah’s Manna”, later renaming it Post Toasties Double-Crisp Corn Flakes, and marketing it as a direct competitor to Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

John Harvey Kellogg was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006 for the discovery of tempering and the invention of the first dry flaked breakfast cereal, which “transformed the typical American breakfast”.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Question of the Day

How do I take care of a sick spider plant?

Spider plants have a tendency to become pot-bound, and if yours is looking pale and sickly, this may be the reason. Take the plant out of the pot and trim back the roots. Repot with fresh soil, place where it will receive light, and take care not to overwater.

Advice of the Day

If fowls roll in the sand, rain is at hand.

Home Hint of the Day

Before you can install new cedar shingles (either white or red) on a roof, you must remove the old roofing material and pull out or drive in all nails.

Word of the Day

Aphelion

The point in a planet’s orbit that is farthest from the Sun.

Puzzle of the Day

What did one arithmetic book say to the other arithmetic book?

Boy, do I have problems!

Born

• Anne Sullivan (teacher and mentor to Helen Keller) – 1866
• Loretta Lynn (American country music singer-songwriter ) – 1932
• Pete Rose (baseball player) – 1941
• Brad Garrett (actor) – 1960
• Adrien Brody (actor) – 1973
• Sarah Michelle Gellar (actress) – 1977
• Abigail Breslin (actress) – 1996

Died

• Burl Ives (actor & singer) – 1995
• Buck Baker (race car driver) – 2002
• Don Ho (entertainer) – 2007
• Trevor Bannister (actor) – 2011
• Walter Breuning (retired railroad worker from Montana who was, at the time of his death, the world’s oldest man at 114 years old.) – 2011

Events

• The sky was full of unknown moving objects in Nuremberg, Germany– 1561
• Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language printed– 1828
• President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater, Washington, D.C.– 1865
• New Jersey passed the first law providing state aid for public roads– 1891
• John Harvey Kellogg patented process to make cornflakes– 1896
• James Cash Penney opened his first store, Kemmerer, Wyoming– 1902
• President William Howard Taft threw a pitch to open the baseball season– 1910
• The world’s largest passenger ship, the RMS Titanic, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage– 1912
• Dr. Harry Plotz’s discovery of the cause of typhus was formally announced – 1915
• Judge ruled “aspirin” is generic trademark in U.S.– 1921
• Katharine Hepburn became the first to win three Best Actress Oscars– 1969
• First major league baseball game in Canada, Expos vs. Cardinals– 1969
• Don Calhoun won $1 million by making a 79-foot shot in a basketball contest– 1993
• 51-pound 4-ounce monkfish caught in Stellwagen Bank, Massachusetts– 2008
• Beatle George Harrison received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame– 2009
• A massive fireball shot across the evening sky, visible for about 15 minutes in the Midwest. A sonic boom and lightning were reported.– 2010
• A 7.1-magnitude earthquake devastated China’s Yushu County in the Qinghai Province– 2010

Weather

• Severe coastal storm, Virginia and North Carolina– 1877
• Devastating tornado cut 20 mile path through St. Cloud, Minnesota– 1886
• Today into the following day: 87 inches of snow fell in 27.5 hours in Silver Lake, Colorado– 1921
• The Black Blizzard, a huge dust storm, blew through the drought-stricken Great Plains. The day became known as “Black Sunday.”– 1935
• Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, received 13 inches of snow– 1983

COURTESY www.almanac.com