The invention of cornflakes is a curious story, tangled in a history of religious fervor, radical health reform, commercial success, and a decades-long feud between two brothers. Born in the kitchens of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, Michigan, cornflakes began life as part of a strict dietary regimen designed to curb vice and promote physical and moral purity. One brother, Dr. Jon Harvey Kellogg, saw in them a path to spiritual discipline and physical health.
The other brother, William, saw a chance to transform the business of breakfast forever. The strange story of how one of the most widely consumed breakfast cereals in the world came to be – from health food to global commodity – reflects the ideas and contradictions of its time.
What Was Breakfast at Battle Creek?
The story of cornflakes begins in Battle Creek Sanitarium, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1866 by Ellen G. White, a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist church, Battle Creek Sanitarium quickly gained international renown. It became a global hub for health and wellness through the promotion of dietary reform, hydrotherapy, and physical training.
From 1873 to 1943, the Sanitarium was run by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg – a physician, businessman, devout Seventh Day Adventist, and later leader in the eugenics movement. A leading voice in the Clean Living Movement, Kellogg combined contemporary medical science with religious doctrine to advocate for a lifestyle of moderation, abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, and vegetarianism. He dubbed his philosophy “biologic living.”
Cornflakes, it turns out, were less a brilliant invention than a lucky accident. In 1894, his younger brother, William Keith Kellogg, stumbled across a pot of overcooked wheat that had gone stale in the Sanitarium kitchen. Rather than throw it away, he ran the paste through a set of rollers in an attempt to flatten it out into a sheet of dough. Incidentally, the sheet dried into flakes – which proved surprisingly popular with the Sanitarium’s clientele (Anderson, 2013).
It was John, however, who would take credit for Will’s ‘invention’ of the famous ‘toasted flake.’ Obsessed with finding a food that would curb indulgence and promote bodily purity, John eagerly adopted the new cereal and later positioned himself as its originator (Holtzmann, 2020).
Who Was Dr John Harvey Kellogg?
Born in Tyrone, Michigan, John Harvey Kellogg was perhaps the most influential health reformer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Under his leadership, the Battle Creek Sanitarium became a destination for the wealthy and powerful, attracting figures like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Irving Fisher.
Kellogg’s approach to health was comprehensive – and highly eccentric. He championed the benefits of vegetarianism, sunbathing, fresh air, and physical exercise, while advocating treatments such as frequent enemas, hydrotherapy, electric light baths, and massage therapy. He also developed an array of ‘health foods’ such as peanut butter – and of course, the cornflake.
Kellogg was not, however, a straight health reformer and medical ‘scientist.’ His doctrine of Biologic Living was as much about spiritual purification as physical health. Kellogg believed that the perfection and purification of the body was a necessary step ‘to make it fit for translation into heaven’ (Loignon, 2019).
More troubling was his devotion to eugenics. In the final decades of his life, he became a vocal advocate for racial purity and sterilization. In his popular 1911 pamphlet, Tendencies Toward Race Degeneracy, he argued that humanity was “poisoning” itself with bad hereditary traits (unhealthy habits) that were being passed down to future generations. Referencing ‘humanity’, Kellogg was in fact referring to the ‘white race’. Through his Race Betterment Foundation (founded in 1906), Kellogg promoted racial segregation and the idea that non-white immigrants to the United States were damaging the White American gene pool. He spoke in favor of the sterilization of those he deemed ‘mentally defective persons’. The Battle Creek Sanitarium, under his guidance, only treated “white Anglo-Saxons” – Russians, Indians, Jews, and blacks were not permitted entry (Loignon, 2019).
How Are Cornflakes Regarded Today?
Against John’s theologically inspired vision of cornflakes as a dietary route to moral and physical purification, Will saw a business opportunity. Breaking from his brother, he founded the Battle Creek Toasted Cornflake Company in 1906 – later renamed as the Kellogg Company. Unlike John’s bland savoury flakes, using corn and other grains, Will started selling a modified version of the cornflake – with added sugar (Holtzmann, 2020).
The company went on to become a commercial success. As a result, the Kellogg brothers remained locked in a bitter feud for the rest of their lives, each claiming ownership of the cornflake, its invention, and legacy. In the end, Will emerged victorious, becoming one of the world’s first cereal magnates, while John faded into relative obscurity.
Though originally conceived as a health food rooted in the ideals of the Clean Living Movement, cornflakes today bear little trace of their puritanical origins. Instead of curing vice or cleansing the soul, cornflakes are a mass-marketed, sugar-laced, globally consumed commodity. What began as an accidental discovery from a forgotten pot of stale wheat has evolved into one of the most popular breakfast cereals on the planet.
