Latest / Ridiculous History / “It’s Edible!” The Origin of Breakfast Cereal, Part One

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“It’s Edible!” The Origin of Breakfast Cereal, Part One · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. That's our man, the Myth,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the Legend are super producer Mr Max Williams Cyril. Yeah,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: he's a regular serial killer. I'm Ben Bullen. That's Mr
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Noel Brown. Uh knel off air, we talked real quick
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and we were just checking in and I asked you
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and Max whether you guys had eaten any cereal today? Yeah,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I have it. It's not a good too for me.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I like it, uh you know, I like the nostalgia factor.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I think first and foremost like things like hunting nut
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: cheerios and fruit loops and all of that good stuff.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: But it's not like a thing that I keep around, um,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you know, regularly in the pantry. Now, Ridiculous Historians listening
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: along with your kids, or Ridiculous Historians who are teachers
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: playing this episode, please know I'm about to say something
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: that's a reel. Back when I was a stoner, I
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: loved Reese's Puff cereal. I did not eat it with milk.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I just made bad decisions. And they would absolutely house
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a box of this. Folks, when we're talking cereal, though,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: we're not talking the scientific definition, which is any grass
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: that is cultivated for edible components. Right, Technically, that's like
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a food group. Right, that's one of the little bits
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: on the food pyramid. Right, we're talking, uh, we're not
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: talking just straight grains. We're talking about the weird thing
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: known as breakfast cereal. Right. You walk through a grocery
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: store in many parts of the world, and you will
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: see aisles devoted to, uh, to these things called cereals,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: which are almost exclusively marketed as a breakfast dish. Right,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: what what are some cereal? Oh? Oh nol. You and
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I always give our ride or dive Mr Matt Frederick
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: from stuff they don't want you to know. We always
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: give him a hard time. We roast them a little
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: because that guy, as brilliant and lovable as he is,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: he loves raisin brand, which is like two of the
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: worst things together, dud. So does my girlfriend and I
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: give her I give her hard yeah, days of raisin brand.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: She likes those extra scoops, you know, extra raisins. Yeah,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: however many and she says that that that that that
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: raisins or Nature's candy. I say raisins or nature's rat turd's. Yeah,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: which you're already nature's rat turds. We have been actually,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: we have been going. Uh, we've been going a little
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: hard on the raisins. Earlier I called them grapes that
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: didn't make it, which is true, but you could say
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the same of wine that's made of grapes that didn't
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: make it. But look, chances are, folks, and shout out
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: to our research associate for this, Mr Max Williams. Yeah,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: do the sound cute? And chances are you have walked
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: through uh supermarket or grocery store aisle, or you might
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: even stop by a convenience store and you'll see some
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: some sort of packaged breakfast cereal. For a long time,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: this has been marketed to humans as something that has
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of convenience and a lot of nutrition. The
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: weird term used for this is part of a balanced breakfast.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Were burnt, Oh, no doubt. And in terms of the marketing,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously a huge swath of this stuff is
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: marketed directly at kids or maybe adults for nostalgic purposes.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Also fair. But you'll notice, like around Halloween, they'll they'll
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: do like the yummy mummies and count chocolas of the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: world and make a big to do about that. I
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: think that is a nostalgia play because those cereals we
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: associate with cartoon uh television commercials from when we were
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: a kid. And then you've got all these other legacy
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: brands like you know what is it the sugar Bear,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you know, who seems more like a heroin addict than
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: a than a stoner to me. Also aspirational. You got
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: wheaties with athletes, yeah on the on the cover, got
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: eat your wheaties? Or what does he say, be Mike
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: or whatever? You know, that's definitely aspirational, in the same
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: way that Pump up Shoes were supposedly going to make
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: a game, which is obviously not not true. You know
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: what's his name, Iced T the Rapper and televisions are
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: he's really a big fan of cheerios, and he is
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: a spokesperson for cheerios, but apparently he actually really digs
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the stuff and cheerios or or or decent cheerios are
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: a decent a decent snack, just like a granola bar. Right,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: not to be abused because you've got some feelings come
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: in here. I mean cheerios are like the best of cereals,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: which makes it come out like a C minus rating.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Now there's actually our cereals. I agree with you with
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the Reese's cocoa puffs. Remember the ones that were were
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: It was basically the same recipe but shaped like little basketballs.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: That was a sports tie and that had nothing to
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: do with the improving your game or your diet, because
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: those things are made of garbage, made of actual garbage,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: at least in terms of the sugar content and preservatives
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: and all of that kind of stuff. We're gonna get
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: into that. And here we are a world in which
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: you will find weirdly specific marketing for a weirdly specific
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: meal of the day. How did we get here? How
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: did how did uh specific type or genre of food
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: become associated with health consciousness? How did it become associated
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  Speaker 1: with breakfast? It turns out this all began at a
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  Speaker 1: amazing moment of intersections between a great many variables. Now
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you've heard of Kellogg, and we we trust that if
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: you are a fellow ridiculous historian, you know a lot
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: of the stories of you know, related to Kellogg about
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: how he just hated people having any sort of central joy.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: But our real hero in this story, or protagonist perhaps
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: is a guy Okay, antagonist big bad uh, A character
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: of a person of interest, a character of note is
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a guy named Dr James Caleb Jackson, and this guy
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: plays a huge role in the recent invention of what
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: we call sereal today happens eighteen sixty three. Noel, Dr
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Jackson is not a super bad person. He's an abolitionist. Yeah, yeah,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: he's an abolitionist. He's also a big proponent of drinking
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: lots of water uh and staying hydrated all that, and
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: can all agree that's that's probably a smart move and
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: not too difficult to do of all the health related
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: things that we can do in our day to day.
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  Speaker 1: He was the founder of a well known facility called
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the Jackson Sanitarium in New York. I don't know the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: history of of that specific facility, although I do know
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the troubled history of sanitariums in this country in general,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: so I wouldn't be surprised if some bad stuff went
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: down there, probably not directly caused by Mr Jackson, but
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: we know that, you know, sometimes as a slippery slope.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: But again I don't know about this one. In particular,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: but wouldn't be surprised. Well, he is the guy who
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: decided that water was the most cleansing material that could
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: enter a human body, and as a result, he mixed
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: water with graham flower and he baked it. And then
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: he said, I have the first ready to eat cereal.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Let's give. Let's give some kind of whatever you feel
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: is appropriate. Max sound design wise, he said, don I
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: shouted cold this first ready to eat cereal granula g
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: r A and U l A. It sounds a little sinister.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know why, but granula sounds like I don't know,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: it sounds like a a think piece. It sounds like
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: it's uh Francis Ford Coppola or verd or Herzog films.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: It sounds like the building blocks of all the reality,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: you know, like some kind of like you know, atomic
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: particle granula, you know, but like something that maybe like
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the Greeks or some philosopher or would have referred to
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: that as By the way, I was pronouncing the word wrong,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: it is sanatorium and this place was created much more
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: as a health spa and resource, So using that word
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: maybe sanatorium and sanitarium are two different things. I think
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: they very much are just no, I retract my shade
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: against the Jackson Santa's are for potentially housing abuses of
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: individuals with mental illness. I mean, I I gotta actually
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: issue an attraction. Also, I called this guy an antagonist,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: but he was an abolitionist. So it that feels harsh
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  Speaker 1: for me. So I'm gonna say, sorry, Dr Jackson, I
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  Speaker 1: am for real stuff right there. No, okay, I love it. Uh.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And and no, Max, you did that reference in a
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: way that will not allow us to be sued. Go us.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: This grandula was not meant to be tasty. It was
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: not Captain Crunch. It was not Chocko Puffs or whatever,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: yummy mummy or yummy mummy. Thank your Franka Berry. No
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: perfect your na alien. There's a pantheon there. Uh. And
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you the uh. This stuff granula was not convenient.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: You had to soak it overnight just to be able
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  Speaker 1: to eat it that next morning, and you had to
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  Speaker 1: soak it in milk. And this spoke to some part
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of the public in the United States, and they created
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Dr Jackson created Our Home Granula Company. People loved it.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about companies that were
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: founded on weird sectarian or cult like ideas. Do check
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: out stuff they don't want you to know companies started
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: by gults. Uh. For now, what you need to know
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: is that in eighteen sixty six, someone who was a
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: big fan of Dr j Uh, person named Ellen White,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: who would go on to help found actually be the
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: prior Mary, founder of the Seventh day Adventist Church, started
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: something in Battle Creek, Michigan called the Western Health Reform Institute.
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  Speaker 1: And I swear that in my last backtrack, turns out
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  Speaker 1: sanitarium and sanatorium the same thing. They are just an
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: antiquated term initially used to refer to a specialized medical
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: clinics of any kind and then mainly associated with the
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: negative version of that. We don't call them that anymore.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: We call them psychiatric facility or yeah, anyway, just making
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: sure they are the same thing. But it's like referred
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: to variably as sanitarium and sanatorium in all of the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: material that we found in and online. A lot of
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: people have this confusion. So I hope, I hope that
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  Speaker 1: cleared up for anybody. But yes, you could consider at
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the time this facility to also be one of those
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: you know, um this, yeah, the health the Western Health
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  Speaker 1: Reform Institute in Battle Creek, Michigan. Out of this with
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: her husband, uh named James, wasn't particularly well received in
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the early years. Not a lot of people, you know,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: took to this idea. Yeah, this is something that you would,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: you know, you'd sign up for and pay money for,
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  Speaker 1: you know. But in eighteen sixty six, Allen decided to
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  Speaker 1: take a chance on a young upstart by the name
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of John Harvey Kellogg. Yes, that's the one. Um. She
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: hired him to help actually provide some marketing assistance to
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: hopefully get the word out and uh and create sort
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: of an image that maybe she hadn't quite hit on yet.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: And this also allowed Kellogg to study at New York's
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Bellevue Hospital, where he started to think about ways to
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: make like ready to eat cereal, not the overnight soaking
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: variety available to the general public. And it's funny to
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: just want to add like overnight oats and things like
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: that's actually become like a trendy thing now where you
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: go to a fancy like brunch places and they'll have
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: like overnight oats. So what is old is now? Again?
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: So you're saying, is all cereal is cyclical, I think so,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: certainly the serial cycle. Jeez. Okay, uh, oh my gosh.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I have a list of puns for this episode, and
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I have not shared them. Uh And hopefully, if we're
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: doing a great job, we won't have to hear any
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: of them, because I'm gonna be honest with you. No,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Max Fellow, ridiculous historians. These are all terrible puns. They're
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: like zero out of ten. Anyway, you nailed it. This guy, Kelly.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: He goes back to Battle Creek and he sees that
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: the institute that eleanor husband James have started is really struggling.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: You know, they're they're having a tough time becoming sustainable.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: They don't know whether they will be able to continue
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: the institute in the future. So he renames it to
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: your excellent earlier point Noal Battle Creek Santa Arium, and
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: he says the following. He says, Look, you gotta eat vegetables, right,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Eating the eating the flesh of dead animals might be
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: bad for you. You gotta eat the way that our ancestors,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: other primates, monkeys eat simple food, fruits, vegge, not too
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: much of it. Stop over eating. This guy, this Kella
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: guy would hate and all you can eat buffet and honestly,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: all you can eat buffets I speak from unfortunate experience,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: should come with a warning. They should be all you
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: should eat buffets. But that's a you know, that's a
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: that's a tough crossroads for anyone who sees a bunch
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: of crab legs uh and some potato salad uh and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a potato and some green beans whatever. You know. I
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: mean that all you can eat buffet model does put
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of impetus on the individual to exercise them
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: self control. Some people that are not are not as
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: capable as others maybe of doing that. So you know,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: we do live in a country where you're not gonna
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: turn someone down just because maybe they look like they
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have another plate of spaghetti. Spaghetti's all right, though,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I have a horse of the race.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I like spaghetti. All you can eat spaghetti buffet, that'd
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: be fun. Remember fazzoles. That was kind that was like, yeah, fizzoles.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: It was like a pasta buffet, built your own postible thing. Um.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: But yeah, vegetarianism whole foods, right, what we would think
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: of today is kind of the more holistic health aproach
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: hasn't change the whole heck of a lot. And it
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: gets pretty popular with us because of things like like influencers,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: the same way we see certain trend diets or whatever
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: you call them. Fad diets kind of hit today because
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of you know, celebrities that take them on and either
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: they're getting paid by them or they really just truly
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: believe in it. But we're talking about the celebrities or
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: influencers of the day. Amelia Earhart before she disappeared mysteriously,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Um Thomas Edison, big deal that guy before he ripped
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: off or while he was ripping off. Numerous on acknowledged inventors.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: That's sort of the name of the game when it
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: comes to inventors in those days, like rip off and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: rip off. Well, and of course President Taft was I
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: think he was. He was relatively beloved. He famously struggled
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: with fitness is a diplomatic way to put it. Like
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: you got called the bathtub. Hey, come on, different episode, Max,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: But hey, we all know I loved Halft. I I
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: kind of a lot. I know if you add a tattoo,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: it would be him. But the in the late eighteen
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: seventies or early eighteen eighties, Kellogg starts making his own
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: version of Ellen White's formula, which again is descended from
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Dr Jackson, right, and and he said, yeah, if you're nasty. Uh.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: And he says, we'll put this wheat flour together with oatmeal,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: and we'll put it together with corn meal, and we'll
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: make a um, a very carb heavy paste or agglomeration
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: of that sound so so delightful car heavy paste. That
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: sounds amazing. Welcome to Syriel. Have you encountered a carbohydrate
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: deficit in your life? Consider the following granula? Uh? Well,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Jackson Dr j sues Kellogg because he says, Kellogg, you're
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: taking my shine. You're taking this idea that I had,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and you're making it look like it was your own.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: And so Kellogg pops back and says, hey, no, beef,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: let's not get beefed up. I'm a vegetarian. I'm gonna
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: rename this grund Nola instead of grand new Lah. Very
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: vinilized it is. But I have to say, can we
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: all agree that granola sounds way more appealing than granula.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: It's got a much better mouth field to Yeah, you're
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: waiting for that one, you know, Ola? Just it sounds
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: fun like Crayola, you know, or like osh, gosh, but gosh,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: not the same thing, but if it has the smack
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: of branding to it, whereas granula sounds really clinical and
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: like you said, like some sort of weird you know, supplement,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: or or it sounds like the building blocks of a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: space faring civilization and a Wojanowski film. Well, this is
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the thing as well. We're we're also very clearly basing
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: our emotional reactions on the times in which we are alive. Uh,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Granola had one huge advantage. It wasn't beat me here.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: It wasn't faking hard tack. You guys know about hard tack.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Hard tack is terrible and it's Yeah, hart tach is
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: sort of a category, right, I mean, isn't it just
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: sort of like gruel? Basically no specific Yeah, harttach is
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a um okay, let's be honest. Heart tack is technically
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: like a biscuit or a cracker. But it it doesn't
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: go bad. It's just so concentrated and so derived of water,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: so dehydrated that you can injure your mouth and jaw
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: attempting to eat it without dipping it in something or
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: somehow diluting it. That's why granola or whatever had to
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: be soaked in milk overnight. Granola is a commercial success
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: because Kellogg figured out some cool stuff. So he gets
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: with his brother William Kellogg, and he creates really what
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: we would call the origins of breakfast cereal today, and
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: people love it. People love it so much so that
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: of course other people enter the fray. What did you
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: say earlier, knowl it was eighteen eighties, six by eight.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I think there's a new challenger on the board. Yeah,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: because I mean, at the end of the day, we're
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: talking about sort of reconstituted grain material. So that's why
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the lawsuit was only about the name, the branding. You
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: can't really copyright trademark the idea of, you know, putting
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: wet stuff into dry stuff and making it somewhat edible. So,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: you know, the the c W Post came along who
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: was actually a former patient at the Battle Creek Sanitarium
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: UM and was impressed with Kellogg's methods, you know, and
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: his experiments with grain. So he he kind of did
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: what Kellogg did with uh with with the previous inventor
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: or the granula, and kind of started his own thing.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: His own company. His creation was called Post Them, and
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: it was like a beverage. Spell it out, everybody, post
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: them p O S t U M. That sounds like
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: a medical excretion. Yeah, all of these. Yeah, I mean,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Granola is really the one that stuck stuck around. Obviously
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: post Them was a play on his last name. And
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: then ultimately they dropped the um because I don't know
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: anything about this product and created the Post Serial company,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: which is also huge and easy to confuse. Which cartoon
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: mascots go with, which you know brand. I wouldn't be
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: surprised if the same parent company owns both of them
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: at this point, but it's hard to say. But um,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: this guy Tony Sherman Um, who was a general manager
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of Post Foods, said he described it as a serial
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: beverage intended to replace coffee in the morning, which I
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: don't understand because people drink coffee because of the caffeine.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: So this was a caffeine free coffee substitute, which, again,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: speaking of useless things, you know, like nipples on a
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: breastplate or whatever. As the Game of Thrones folks would say, um,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: caffeine free coffee is I don't understand. Yeah, I don't
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: get it, but you know, all the best to these folks,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: he says, don't let your kids share your coffee. What
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: you should do is give them this stuff. We call
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: it post them. It's a child friendly beverage essentially. And
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: around the same year the brothers Kellogg start experimenting with
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: flakes of great You can see examples of this in
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: packages of things like Granos Flakes g R A N
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: O S E. Granos Flakes, which would be one of
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the first on the shelf breakfast cereals. And all it
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: said was enriched the blood, which sounds very much like
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: a vampire made that and wants to drink the blooded children.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: You could get the vibe from the Kellogg's primary motivation,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: which is the world should eat less meat and eat
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: more grains, and technically that is true. Check out the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollen. This message is a very
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: big deal in the early days of cereal because the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: cereal brands are trying to convince people to walk away
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: from the typical agrarian breakfast, which is you know, eggs,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: meat of some sort a lot of bread. They're saying, hey,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: you know, stay nutritious. But also this is you know,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: very Steve brule for your health and whether they realize
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: that or not. This was another one of those kind
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of like food of the future, you know, like the
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: microwave and what was the other one we did recently,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: like uh, you know oven pre pre frozen meals that
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: you could put in. It was seen as this like convenient,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: one stop shop to get all those same nutrients. So
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: it was kind of marketed in that way to a degree.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Um Post actually beat Kellogg to the market. Oh, we're
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: gonna talk about it. Our favorite, our favorite cereal. Yeah,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: grape nuts, which contains much like an egg cream, neither
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: grape nor nuts. Uh, egg cream contains neither egg nor cream.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And it's like it's like rabbit food, like like little
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: pellets that you'd buy in a giant sack, you know,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: from a pet store. It'll keep you sober though, That
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: was their pitch and regular apparently, Yeah, you can just
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: poop all the time and never drink boost. Yeah, you
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: start to poop just like dark matter, you know at
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: this point, just like the density. It's like, yeah, anyway,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: there's a reason we don't eat like like rabbits, you know,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: or or apes. I'm not I'm not saying this isn't
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: fine for some people. Maybe a steady diet of grape
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: nut and cream of wheat, you know, is great for
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: some people. But you don't eat grape nuts. Like you're
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: not eating grapes. You're not eating nuts. You're also not
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: pooping grapes, nor are you pooping nuts. This whole thing
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: stem to Stern. It's a gript It's like a grift
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: that's still around to this day. And those, uh, those
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the grocery store aisles that you were talking about, Ben granted,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: very small box and like, isn't your dad really into
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: grape nuts? Max, My daddy's grape nuts every single morning
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: when like the pandemic was first start happen, it was
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: really hard to get stuff. They were out of grape nuts,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and it was like he was like considering paying sixty
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: dollars for a box of grape nuts off of the Amazon.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: That's because it's like him and like fifty other old
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: men that they're the only ones that eat it. Start. Also, Max,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you should give you should give this quote from Karen
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: get doll here, Karen Gendal, who was manager of grape nuts. Yes, yes,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: they said grape nuts with people eating advertising, which, yeah,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and they ate it up. They ate it up bacon,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I mean it is. It is a very similar story
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: where you're taking something kind of unappealing on its surface
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and selling it. I'm glad. I like baking way better
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: than grape nuts. It's it's it's a much tastier grift,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: but a griff just the same. I like the idea.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Let's reopen ridiculous history cinema and let's let's just play
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: around with the idea of a title called a tasty grift.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. Uh okay. So back into back into
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the time of cereals Ascendants nineteen o six. The Kellogg bros.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Will Kellogg specifically, they took the rights from things like
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: corn flake and the Kellogg Dame. Will took it from
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: his brother, and they beefed up about ingredients, primarily because
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Will said, we need to add sugar to this original recipe.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: This is where they start exploiting children and parents. The
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: first boxes of Kellogg's corn flakes were just flakes, and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: then they started focusing on sugar and they started saying
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: they're delicious, they're distinctive in flavor. Children, go tell your
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: parents that other parents will call you poor if you
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: don't buy me sugar in the morning in flake form.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And they didn't talk about health benefits and they didn't
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: have to because at this point people were brainwashed. So
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: is this Kellogg getting greedy and totally abandoning is you know,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: holistic life style approach or is this like at this point,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: is the company passed out of his hands or something,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: because it seems a very counter to all of his
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: you know, healthy, feel good, tery kind of attitude. John
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Harvey Kellogg is the healthy, feel good, very kind of guy.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: In the conversation, his brother, Will Kellogg is the guy
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: runs this stuff. I would just think that that would
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: cause some strife between the brothers. Maybe it's like you're
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: taking my my vision and you bastardized it. Now you're
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: trying to kill children with it. But also, do they
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: know as much about sugar then and how bad it
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: was for you that we know today? I don't think so.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: It was more of a luxury, Yeah, not at that point.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: They just knew it was a way to sell boxes. Yeah,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you guilt the parents. You guilt the parents through the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: children you sell the stuff Kellogg. Will Kellogg also put
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of effort into making sure the people were
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: buying genuine Kellogg's right, because there were a lot of
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: other people coming in the mix. You know, there's like
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the Max and Alex Williams totally legit breakfast flakes or
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: something like that. What I like, Yeah, what I like
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: about that name is how short and witty it is. Uh.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: There's also there's also this idea that people are buying
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: based on celebrity. As we see in a great work
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: by Jaya Zacina on Serious Heats dot com, American consumers
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: were buying cereal because they were intrigued. They wanted to
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: be part of the Kellogg story. So Kellogg is trying
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to trying to say, look, we have to redefine what
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: constitutes and American breakfast something hardy eggs, some sort of
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: protein from an animal, uh, some sort of carbohydrate, etcetera.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: How do we make milk and our proprietary grains look
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: like they are on the level or superior to that. Uh.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: We can get stuff on the shelves, but how do
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: we make people feel like they need it? Oh? Man,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: I just gotta insert a little interesting bit of trivia. Uh.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: William Keith Kellogg's signature is the Kellogg logo sort of
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: like Walt Disney Company is Walt Disney signature And I
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: just thought that was some clever, you know, typography. But
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: if you look, you can see a signature and the
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois, because it was
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: was founded or at least um with through a ten
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: million dollar gift that he made. I think it was
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: named after him. It was called something else for them.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: That is still a very prestigious business school to this day. Yeah,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and that's back when ten million dollars really counted for something.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Uh So, a lot of the package ideas or designs,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: and I'm so glad you talked about the the logo
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and the signature. Here. A lot of these designs the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: things you would see when you're walking in your grocery store.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: They focused on how awesome it was to have a
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: bowl of cereal. You don't need all this other junk
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: in the morning. All you gotta do busy this bowl
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: as part of a ballast breakfast which comes later. Anyway,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: fast forward nineteen twenty two, there's a thing called Washburns
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: whole wheat flakes. Let me do that again with a
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: different voice. West bends heavy wheat flakes because it sounds
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: so Monty Burns, doesn't it Like that sounds boring? Cereals
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: it is, fetch me the washbunds flicks. Yeah. And also
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: with the word washing, there just that I immediately think
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: of like dishwasher detergent, you know, are like the kind
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: of soap flakes you use back in like the fifties
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: or whatever to to wash your clothes in. Um. Yeah, man,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: it's just you know, wash Burns, holyweat flakes. Uh did
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: pretty well? Right? Yeah? Yeah, you may recognize it today
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: as tweeties, all right. They we're just both say waites
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: got eat your wheaties or eat your better each whatever.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Any number of sports icon figures have been associated with
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that brand with I don't know, I mean, do you
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: think that they look at like the stats before they
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: agree to sign on. No, they just know Michael Jordan
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: did it and they're like, cool, We're we're going to
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: be associated with this brand because it's all about kind
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: of legacy brand associations. And if you want to be
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: like Mike, then you also promote the same cereal that
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Mike did. But you know, I mean, the fact of
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the matter is whether you agree with this notion of
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: eating cereal for breakfast being better or worse than um,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: you know, eggs and bacon or whatever it might be, potatoes.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: It is still just a giant carbload, you know, um
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: that does have vitamins and minerals and things I guess
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: inserted into them. I'm so glad you said that because
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Washburn's howe flakes were or wheaties were marketed as a
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: perfect food. So Michael and ready to eat. And then
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Post who was like the pepsi in this conversation, Uh,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Post Toasties called themselves of four star breakfast treat Get
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: this sknoll combining flavor, nourishment, vitamins, and economy in a
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: single box. Who sweet sweet economy. Oh if I could
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: but taste it? Well, now you can. Um. And again
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: we know at this point these are all pretty saney, right,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the types of cereals that are hitting the market and
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: that are doing well. So we really start to get
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: into this diversification of syria ails and this marketing towards
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: kids with the advent of mascots, these cartoon mascots that
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: some of which have changed very fascinatingly over time, like, uh,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: the what is it? I think it's um lucky charms
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: didn't used to be wrapped by a leprecn. It used
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: to be a wizard. And you know, certain of these
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: mascots have been around forever, have had like various changes
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: over the years. So that's an interesting thing to track
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: if you ever want to go down a bit of
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: an internet rabbit hole. That's right, folks, this is a
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: two part episode because thanks to Noel and Max, we
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: are going to need two episodes to talk about this cereal.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: We've spent a lot of time off air. I don't
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: know how much is gonna make it into the editor
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: talking about breakfast cereal. So we're gonna call this a
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: two parter. We're gonna pause for now, but I gotta
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: say thank you to anyone who is eating cereal as
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you hear this. And before we impart one, nol, I
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: have to ask you cereal with milk, cereal without milk? Where?
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'll tell you, here's a here's a life
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: hack for you. Cereal with chocolate milk. We'll talk more
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: about that. Our other serial preferences, cereal mascots, the proliferation
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: of health issues with children, and all of the various
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: pitfalls of marketing without proper science and research. In the
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: second part of our serial, Cereal, that's the second one.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: We're literally sereal podcasters right now, folks, thank you for
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: joining us on the journey. Thanks as always to our
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: super producer research associate, Mr Max Williams, thanks to his
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: brother Alex Williams, composed this banging track, thanks to Christopher
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Hasciotis Eve's Jeff Coche. And by the way, before now,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: we usually roast the hell out of our pal Jonathan Strickland,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: a k a. The Quister, but there was a big
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: storm came through the fair metropolis of Atlanta. He was
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: unable to make it today because he's working on some
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: stuff with his house. And as we always, you know,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: we give the guy a hard time, rightly so, because
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: he's a real jerk to us on air, but we
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: do have his back and we do wish well. So
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: thank you to you, Jonathan. If you hear this, yeah,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: thank you to you, Jonathan. Thank you to you some
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: producer Max for putting together such an amazing bundle of
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: research on this topic. So much there's an embarrassment of
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: riches that we did have to make it at two
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: parter and of course thanks to you, Ben Captain. Crunch
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: also ties into phone freaking packing. Yeah, and it cuts
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the roof of your mouth, dude. We'll see you next time, Cooks.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows.