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From: phil@panix.com (Phil Gustafson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Corn Flakes origin
Date: 4 Jan 1995 23:33:30 -0500

William A. Lynn III <w.a.lynn@larc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>As I remember, the original intent of corn flakes was to suppress
>sexual desire, or some such. Does anyone have any references for this guy?
>I could find only a few terse who's who sort of things. Thanks.

You're thinking of graham crackers, Bill.

Corn flakes were invented in 1894 by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, head of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, and his more enterprenurial brother William Keith. The doctor was a Seventh Day Adventist who imposed a strict vegetarian diet on his patients, and he and his brother put special effort into making the diet palatable, artichoke frittata not having been invented at the ttime.

They baked some boiled wheat on a baking tin, the doctor was called away on an emergency, and they rolled out the stuff the next day. Presto, flakes. J. H. was interested in the sanitarium, W. K. was interested in getting rich, and the latter sweetened up the flakes with malt, bought the commercial rights from his brother, and started the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906.

Thus Tony the Tiger. No cattle fodder, no anaphrodisiacs.

See "Everybody's Business", Milton Moskowitz et al, Harper & Row, 1980. I'd give the ISBN, but the book is long out of print an there's a c. 1990 edition out. This is a fine book for telling what those capitalist scum are (or in this case were) really doing.