They are called processed foods because they go through several processes to turn them into breakfast cereal.
During the American Civil War, Union soldiers were glad to get a hot breakfast cereals, especially when they were in the march or cut off from supply trains.
Cooks used foodstuff on hand to make, panada, a hot breakfast gruel affectionately known as ‘bully soup,’ which the main ingredients were watery corn meal and crumbled hardtack, both of which were standard issue.
The original motivation for the development of precooked breakfast foods seems to have been the desire of some vegetarian to add more variety to their diets.
Health food movement emerged in the nineteenth century United States, in a particular among followers of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church which emphasized a vegetarian lifestyle.
At that time most Americans did not consume enough dietary fiber and many suffered from digestive disorders as a result.
The early history of cereal breakfast originated out of the an interest in health foods that can be traced to the 1830s, and specifically to the experiments carried out from the the 1860s by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the pioneer nutritionist, at the sanitarium at Battle Creek, Michigan.
The modern breakfast cereals, however, are entirely precooked and eaten in cold milk. The first precooked cereal was probably invented in 1863 by Dr. James C. Jackson at Dansville, New York.
Jackson’s health food as made by rolling a coarse whole meal dough into thin sheets which were baked until they were hard and brittle loaves.
He broke up hardened loaves of unleavened whole grain bread into little pieces and served it for breakfast after soaking the brittle chunks overnight in milk. Jackson named this mixture granula.
Ganula, was the first cold breakfast cereal. It consisted id a twice baked wholemeal biscuit ground into crumbs, which had to be soaked on milk or water to make it even vaguely palatable.
In 1877, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg created a similar cereal called granola, but not until his invention of corn flakes in 1902 did cereal become a commercial success. At first, most cereals were marketed as pure, whole-grain foods.
In 1894 Kellogg created the first flaked cereal, Granose and in 1898, the corn flake.
Eventually, however, competition resulted in the addition of sugar and other food additives and in marketing campaigns directed at children, such as the inclusion of a premium or toy in the box.
By late 1905, the corn flake business was booming and other cereal manufacturers had gotten into this line. In January 1906, Post Cereals introduced a new version of the corn flakes.
It was C. W Post, the founder of Post Cereals who first clearly comprehend that convenience and flavor were more forceful and more widely appreciated advantages than were the healthfulness and vegetable origin previously relied upon as selling points by producers of these foods.
In the 1970s, as cereals came under attack for their lack of nutritive value, many manufacturers began adding nutrients. Unlike most other grain products, breakfast cereals have shown a steady increase in per capita consumption in the United States throughout the 20th cent.
In the early first twenty century, cereal manufacturers came under scrutiny for their marketing practices. The tendency to aim advertisements for high sugar, low nutrient cereals directly at young children was particular criticized.
In response, in 2007 major corporations such as Kellogg’s and General Mills agreed to stop creating child-focused advertising for products that do not meet US dietary standards.
Apart from breads, cereal is the most common form in which Americans consume grain.
Now over 75% of breakfast cereals are ready to eat type made from wheat, corn, or oats .
History of Breakfast Cereal
