Corn flakes were invented in 1898 as an experimental follow-up to wheat flakes, one of the first ready-to-eat breakfast cereals. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a holistic healthcare facility in Michigan associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, followed the religion’s dietary principles with his patients. As his patients grew weary of the strict vegetarian diet that forbade tea, coffee, and condiments and only allowed limited eggs and dairy, he started developing cereal recipes with his wife, Ella, and younger brother Will Keith (W.K) Kellogg. They accidentally discovered that cooked and cooled wheat would become individual flakes after being rolled - a method they subsequently discovered also worked with corn.
More about corn flakes:
- Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was an advocate for eating a diet of corn flakes and other bland foods because he believed that rich and spicy foods provoked impure thoughts and feelings.
- Corn flake sales were low until 1906, when W.K. Kellogg bought out the recipe rights from John Harvey Kellogg and added sugar -- against his brother's wishes.
- Post Cereals was founded by C.W. Post, one of John Harvey Kellogg's former patients. Post was accused by W.K. Kellogg of stealing the recipe from the sanitarium’s safe.