Dr James C. Jackson and breakfast cereal

The modern breakfast cereals are entirely precooked and eaten in cold milk. The first precooked cereal was probably invented by Dr. James C. Jackson at Dansville, New York.

In 1863, Dr. James C. Jackson a vegetarian who operated the Dansville Sanitarium in Dansville, New York, advocated eating healthy food. He took graham flour baked it and broke it up into small pieces.

This was the first breakfast cereal and he called it granula. Jackson’s granula experiment was the beginning of a new concept in breakfast foods that would eventually change the way many Americans started the day.

Jackson’s health food was made by rolling a coarse whole meal dough into thin sheets which were baked until they were hard and brittle loaves. The crisp cookie-like material was broken and ground into small chunks, the chunks were again baked and finally fragmented into small granules.

The resulting coarse nuggets had to be reconstituted with liquid for a minimum of twenty minutes or preferably overnight before they were eaten.
Dr James C. Jackson and breakfast cereal

History of Pop-Tarts

In 1963 Post Cereals released their first product of breakfast cereals, Country Squares to the public. This was part of long term goal set by Post, which was to develop non cereal products after World War II that did not require refrigeration.

To counter Post Cereal’s Country Squares Kellogg came up with product that was initially called a Fruit Scone. It was designed to expand the range of items that could be cooked in a toaster.

The name was changed to Pop-Tart, which was inspired by the pop-art movement. Pop-Tarts have sugary fillings, which are sealed inside two layers of a pastry crust. Pop-Tarts were sold in the grocery stores in Cleveland, Ohio, Kellogg’s instructed store managers to stock the Pop-Tarts in the baked goods or baking supplies aisle and not in the cereal aisle, because they did not want Pop-Tarts to be substituted for cereal.

Post Cereals’ Country Squares failed to take off, but Pop-Tarts sakes were extremely successful when they were released in 1964. Pop-Tarts rapidly grew popular because of television commercial for them that featured a talking cartoon named Milton.

Over the years, some of the delicious flavors of Pop-Tarts have included Blueberry, Cherry Strawberry, Grape, Raspberry, Apple Cinnamon, Brown Sugar, Chocolate Fudge, Vanilla Crème, S’mores, and Peanut Butter and Jelly.

As of 2011, Kellogg produced thirty flavors of Pop-Tarts. The most popular flavors are frosted strawberry and frosted brown sugar cinnamon.
History of Pop-Tarts 

Invention of precooked cereal by James Jackson

The first ready-to-eat breakfast cereal was probably ‘Granula’ precooked dry cereal. It had been made since 1863 by Dr. James Caleb Jackson, well-known as slavery abolitionist, at Dansville, New York.

James Jackson (1811-1895), a vegetarian operated the Dansville Sanitarium in Dansville, New York, advocated eating healthy food.

He prepared heavy dough out of Graham flour and water. He baked slowly until the loaves were very dry, before broke these up into small chunks. Then he baked them again, and finally ground the brittle chunks into smaller pieces.

He named this preparation ‘Granula’ which closely resembles Post’s Grape Nuts, and it was served for breakfast after soaking overnight in milk. Granula is the great grandfather of today’s granola and also predecessor of modern cereal.

John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) visited Jackson’s sanatorium and like the granula. Upon his return, Kellogg duplicated Jackson’s formula and began selling it. Evidently Jackson threatened to sue him, so Kellogg changed the formula in 1881 and called his product granola.

Within eight years Kellogg’s Sanitas Food Company was selling two tons of the cereal per week.
Invention of precooked cereal by James Jackson 

History of breakfast cereal Kellogg

Food History
The Kellogg brothers were part of the first health movement in America that warned about the dangers of fatty, protein rich foods. Instead, they advocated a diet based primarily on vegetables, grains and fiber. Their devotion to this dietary regime gave rise to the Kellogg’s company and the large consumption of cereals that exists today.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) was a Seventh-day Adventist and vegetarian. He recommended a plain diet for medical and moral reasons. His belief was that a diet high in fat and protein, white bread, coffee and tea, as well as the use of tobacco, could not produce a person chaste in thought.

Dr. Kellogg was appointed the superintendent of a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. He believed the average invalid was suffering from bad intestinal flora and needed less protein and more roughage in his diet. He placed the patients on a strict and bland diet based on numerous vegetable and nut products that he developed, the most famous being a flaked wheat cereal called Granose. Granose’s popularity was limited partially because it, like many of his vegetable creations, was insipid and tasteless. Constant experimenting with various recipes led to the invention in 1902 of a cereal based on flakes of corn and flavored with barley malt. The infamous Corn Flakes were born.

Will Keith Kellogg (1860-1951), better known as W.K. Kellogg, was the younger brother of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and a clerk in the Battle Creek sanitarium. He assisted his brother in the search for new cereal products to support the vegetarian diet they both endorsed. W. K. Kellogg is the most famous since it is he who began the Kellogg’s company in 1906. He relentlessly set forth to package, advertises, market, and sell their cereal products.

In 1924 W.K. expanded the business to Australia. Through the Great Depression, while many firms were shrinking, he increased his advertising and continued to expand the business. In 1938 he began selling his products in England. Today, Kellogg’s products are manufactured in 19 countries and sold to more than 160 countries around the globe.
Food History

History of English Breakfast Tea

The prototype of this most popular of all teas was developed over a hundred years ago by the Scottish Tea Master Drysdale in Edinburgh.


By the 1700s, it become indoctrinated into the English lifestyle. It replaced the customary practice of drinking ale at breakfast.

The institution of tea for breakfast was probably influenced by Queen Anne (1665-1714).

It was marketed simply as "Breakfast Tea". It quickly became popular in England because Queen Victoria loved all things Scottish.

Tea shops in London, however, changed the name and marketed it as "English Breakfast Tea", claiming it as their own.

It is an originally blend of fine black teas from India and Chinese tea, often including some Keemun tea.

Keemun, a black Chinese tea with a fruity taste and a hint of pine. Keemun possess a full, concentrated flavor and a toasty aroma and sometimes referred to as the ‘Burgundy of teas.’

Nowadays Assam, Ceylon and African teas are blended to provide drinkers with the three elements they require – strength, flavour and color.

It should be offered with milk or lemon. It may also be used to brew iced tea.
History of English Breakfast Tea

History of Breakfast Cereal

Breakfast cereal, a food made from grain, commonly eaten in the morning. The oldest type of cereal, known as porridge or gruel, requires cooking in water or milk.

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