The history of breakfast cereals

Breakfast cereals are a common sight on breakfast tables everywhere today. And rightly so. They are a welcome and healthy alternative to the more traditional breakfasts.

From medical cure to breakfast favourite

Breakfast cereals were first created to help people with digestion problems. In the 19th century the usual morning meal in America was rich in meat and poor in fibre, a state of affairs that led to widespread gastric disorders. The better off spent time in sanatoriums trying to find a cure for their problems.

Early in the 19th century Dr. James Caleb Jackson invented the first breakfast cereal called ‘Granula’. Granula didn’t stand the test of time, however, as the oven-dried mixture of special flour and water had to be soaked overnight before consumption.

But Granula was on J.H. Kellogg’s mind when he developed his first breakfast cereals. As superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanatorium, a combined spa and hospital for the rich and famous, he was continuously on the look out for alternatives to help relieve his patients’ gastric problems. His most successful product was a breakfast cereal based on boiled wheat.

On one occasion, in 1894, he left the boiled wheat resting for a day before rolling it. He then baked it as usual. This resulted in a crispy tasty breakfast cereal that was so nice, patients at the sanatorium wanted to continue eating it after they’d left. The world-famous cornflakes were born. And the rest, as they say, is history.

A great many techniques to make different breakfast cereals then followed. A tool was invented to shred wheat, hence the shredded wheat cereal we can still buy today. Then a ‘puffing gun’ was used to heat up grains into puffy crunchy little balls. And yet another way method was to produce breakfast cereals by extruding cereals under high temperature and pressure. This method was the starting point for every breakfast cereal that is known today.

So while cereals may have started out as part of an initiative to help adult digestion, many more people, including kids, soon discovered that breakfast cereals are fun, tasty and easy to eat. It’s safe to say that for a great many people of all ages around the world, breakfast cereals have become part of the staple diet.