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 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 named his invention as 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.
Now over 75% of breakfast cereals are ready to eat type made from wheat, corn, or oats .
Modern History of Breakfast Cereal
