John Harvey Kellogg: Inventor of Cornflakes

John Harvey Kellogg is best known for inventing the breakfast cereal Corn fiakes. Keith Kellogg, his brother, also deserves some recognition for helping with the invention.

The Kellogg family moved to Battlefield, Michigan, in 1860. Kellogg graduated in 1875 with a medical degree. He went on to work for a printing company in Michigan as an apprentice. He married Ella Ervilla Eaton from New York in 1879. They had no children of their own, but raised over 40, and legally adopted 7 of them. In the year 1920 Ella, his wife, died.

He was a Seventh-day Adventist, and went by the rules of the church when he was in charge of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. The church believed in a vegetarian diet, a regime of exercises, and no smoking, or consuming alcohol policy. As well as inventing corn flakes he also patented a process for making peanut butter. Visitors to the sanitarium would engage in food preparation classes, as well as exercises routines, and even make use of the sunbaths. He also favored using an enema machine on his clients to clear out their system, making their bodily system pure and clean. And strangely after the enema procedure he administered one pint of yogurt to the client, half of which was swallowed, the other half was used in conjunction with the enema machine. Kellogg's believed that most diseases were caused by bacteria build up in the intestines and used the enema method to prevent such diseases occurring. He was also a surgeon and often used his skills on patients at his clinic. He was against any surgery that he deemed to be unnecessary, but he did approve circumcision. He published a book in the early 1900's named The Living Temple. The book was written in order to raise funds for the sanatarium, but people objected to the way he portrayed the Holy Spirit in his writings.

In 1897, along with his brother, he started the cereal company Sanitas Food Company. Will Keith Kellogg wanted to add sugar to the corn flakes recipe causing an argument between the two brothers. His brother went on to open a company called Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, which was later named the Kellogg Company. This caused a long feud between the two brothers. John then opened the Battle Creek Food Company where he made and marketed soy products.

John Kellogg lived for over 60 year's after he wrote the book Plain Facts. His brother wrote a letter in order to make up with John, but his secretary decided the letter was demeaning towards him, and as a result the letter was never sent. Keith Kellogg did not know about this until after his brothers death. John Harvey Kellogg lived from 1852 until his death in the year 1943.

Source: Wikipedia