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Corn Flakes. Yes, after all the recent... "unpleasantness" of the election, taxes, unrepentant terrorists and the field dressing of mooses ( moosi? ), etc., today I want to write about the history of Corn Flakes. Yes, Corn Flakes. After all, What could be more healthy, more normal, a more wholesome benchmark for the historic virtues of the uniquely American character?

The late 19th century was a deeply weird time. Modern scientific and industrial advances were attempting to transform a basically agrarian culture into an industrial one. Sometimes, as was said of the Nixon administration, "mistakes were made."

John Harvey Kellogg (February 26, 1852 – December 14, 1943) grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan during the years of and just after the Civil War. He went on to get a medical degree in New York, graduating in 1875 and returning to Battle Creek to become the superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a health and wellness clinic operated according to the then current beliefs of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Tens of thousands of guests visited and it became a destination for celebrities, the wealthy and even prosperous middle class American citizens. Testimonies by the rich and famous, like Mary Todd Lincoln, Sojourner Truth and others led to an enthusiasm among the general population for scientific-based dieting and heath treatments. It was nicknamed "The San" and taking a retreat there became a status symbol.

Someday future generations will undoubtably make fun of our fads, but even allowing for the cultural differences between then and now, it seems to me like Kellogg was doing some seriously weird stuff in Battle Creek.

Take the enemas, for example:

Kellogg made sure that the bowel of each and every patient was plied with water, from above and below. His favorite device was an enema machine that could rapidly instill several gallons of water in a series of enemas. Every water enema was followed by a pint of yogurt — half was eaten, the other half was administered by enema “thus planting the protective germs where they are most needed and may render most effective service." The yogurt served to replace the intestinal flora of the bowel, creating what Kellogg claimed was a squeaky-clean intestine.

I used to live near Malibu, California and there are these little "colonic" shops scattered among the glamourous homes of the movie stars, even today. Whatever. Apparently, celebrities then and now have so much cash they can afford to pay total strangers to flush their bowels. Is this a great country, or what?

If all Kellogg ever did was fiddle with perfecting his enema machines and inject yoghurt up the wazoos of well-to-do-clients we might write him off as a garden-variety eccentric. But nooooooooooo...

Kellogg, an advocate of sexual abstinence, devoted large amounts of his educational and medical work to discouraging sexual activity, on the basis of dangers both real - as in sexually transmissible diseases - and purported. He outlined his views on the subject in his book, initially titled Plain Facts about Sexual Life... [he believed] that a plain and healthy diet, with only two meals a day, among other things, would reduce sexual feelings. Those experiencing temptation were to avoid stimulating food and drinks, and eat very little meat, if any. Kellogg also advocated hydrotherapy and stressed the importance of keeping the colon clean through yogurt enemas.

What is it with the enemas with this guy? Always with the enemas. Although he may be on to something: if my day consisted of a session with an "enema machine" punctuated by a yoghurt binge and then another enema with yoghurt, well... I probably wouldn't feel particularly "sexy" either.

But Kellogg didn't think that anyone should be making (as Borat says) "the sexy time." He led by example:

He warned that many types of sexual activity, including many “excesses” that couples could be guilty of within marriage, were against nature, and therefore, extremely unhealthy... He appears to have gone beyond his own advice, since though he and his wife were married for over forty years, they never had sexual intercourse and had separate bedrooms all their lives. It has been suggested he worked on Plain Facts on their honeymoon.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

But spending all that time alone, did Kellogg ever have, you know, "itches to scratch" or anything like that? Draw your own conclusions: does this sound like a guy who might have had "issues?"

He was an especially zealous campaigner against masturbation; this was an orthodox view during his lifetime, especially the earlier part. Kellogg was able to draw upon many medical sources who made claims such as that "neither the plague, nor war, nor small-pox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicious habit of onanism," credited to one Dr. Alan Clarke. Kellogg strongly warned against the habit in his own words, claiming of masturbation-related deaths "such a victim literally dies by his own hand."

Just being honest here: I couldn't make up anything this funny. I needed this the morning after the election.

He also recommended, to prevent children from this "solitary vice", bandaging or tying their hands, covering their genitals with patented cages(?!), sewing the foreskin shut, and electrical shock (!!!).

A couple of days ago I asked in a post why Detroit wasn't a paradise. Perhaps another reason is that Detroit is close to Battle Creek. In 1994 they made a movie called The Road to Wellville about the Battle Creek Sanitarium with Anthony Hopkins, Dana Carvey and Matthew Broderick. Here's the trailer:

Not that it necessarily has any relevance, but here's a photo of John Harvey Kellogg walking around the Battle Creek Sanitarium with his, um... pet cockatoo. No, really. Stop laughing. Right now.

He's probably on his way to administer a yoghurt enema and attach on of his patented genital cages to keep anyone from "dying from his own hand."

Anyway, what about the Corn Flakes?

Kellogg was an especially strong proponent of nuts, which he believed would save mankind in the face of decreasing food supply. Though mainly renowned nowadays for his development of corn flakes, Kellogg also patented a process for making peanut butter and invented healthful "granose biscuits." At the Battle Creek Sanitarium, Kellogg held classes on food preparation for homemakers. Sanitarium visitors engaged in breathing exercises and mealtime marches to promote proper digestion of food throughout the day. Because Kellogg was a staunch supporter of phototherapy, the sanitarium also made use of artificial sunbaths.

And enemas. Don't forget the daily enemas. With an enema machine. So anyway, John Kellogg, who apparently had a lot of time on his hands (perhaps a poor choice of words in this context...), and his brother invent and decide to manufacturer Corn Flakes as another weapon in their arsenal of health and wellness:

With his brother, Will Keith Kellogg, they started the Sanitas Food Company to produce their whole grain cereals around 1897, a time when the standard breakfast for the wealthy was eggs and meat, while the poor ate porridge, farina, gruel, and other boiled grains. John and Will later argued over the recipe for the cereals (Will wanted to add sugar to the flakes), so in 1906 Will started his own company, the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, which eventually became the Kellogg Company, triggering a decades-long feud. John then formed the Battle Creek Food Company to develop and market soy products. (John did not invent the concept of the dry breakfast cereal. That honor belongs to Dr. James Caleb Jackson who created the first dry breakfast cereal in 1863, which he called Granula. A patient of John's, Charles William Post, would eventually start his own dry cereal company selling a rival brand of corn flakes.) Dr. Kellogg later would claim that Charles Post stole the formula for corn flakes from his safe in the Sanitarium office.

Geez, this guy even turned something innocent like Corn Flakes into something that feels sort of, I don't know... dirty.

And I thought that this would be a refreshing, palate-cleansing, wholesome Walk Thru History post today after all the unpleasantness of yesterday. Sorry, guys. Now I'm depressed again.