Ninth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Cold, packaged breakfast cereals started as health foods, based in the burgeoning nineteenth century science of nutrition. At that time, health reformers like Sylvester Graham, James Caleb Jackson, John and Will Kellogg, and C.W. Post sought to bring whole grains back into the U.S. diet during the rise of industrialization and agricultural intensification, trends which led to more processed foods and cheaper meats in the national diet. These dietary trends led to higher rates of dyspepsia and other ailments across the population. Therefore, health reformers began sanitariums, venues where client-patients would eat and live in a “scientific” method to improve their diet and overall health. This new era of nutritionists patented their breakfast cereal recipes, much like medicines. These cereals—Granola, Corn Flakes, and Grape-Nuts—began an entire breakfast cereal industry. It wasn’t until after World War II that breakfast cereals were marketed almost exclusively to children, at which time their sugar content soared. Between the middle of the nineteenth century and WWII, though, a breakfast of cold cereal was seen as a healthy alternative to the industrialized, processed, meat-heavy American diet. In this paper, I examine how breakfast cereal began as a science, and how it has changed over two centuries. I study the effect cold breakfast cereals have had on “the most important meal of the day” in the United States and across the globe.