Graham crackers

Graham crackers have always been fairly low in fat, usually with less than 3 grams of fat each. Graham crackers were invented around 1830. Minister named Sylvester Graham wanted people to eat healthier foods.

He toured the country giving lectures on the merits of eating coarse whole grain breads and abstaining from fats and meat.

He did not think that people should eat meat or white bread. He wanted people to eat more fruits and vegetables and wheat breads that were brown instead of white. Graham crackers were named after Sylvester Graham.

During the late 1820s and early 1839s, Sylvester Graham launched America’s first culinary revolution the importance of coarsely milled, unbolted, whole wheat flour. Recipes for so-called Graham crackers made from this flour appeared in cookbooks during the nineteenth century.

During the 1850s Graham cracker was probably first manufactured by Russell Thacher Trall, a follower of Sylvester Graham and the author of the New Hydropathic Cookbook in 1854. The National Biscuits Company was the first national manufacturer of Graham Crackers in 1898.
Graham crackers

History of flaked cereal breakfast

In 1894, flaked breakfast cereal was accidently invented by Seventh Day Adventist Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.

He and his younger brother Will Kellogg found a new way of processing corn: they steamed and soften the kernels, added flavorings and then flattened it by feeding it through two steel rollers. The resulting flakes were then baked in an oven.

It dried into flakes, which were fortunately a big hit among the Sanitarium’s clientele. Dr. Kellogg named their first successful wheat flakes product Granose Flakes.

Two years later they had a patent for the technique and began selling Sanitas Toasted Corn Flakes in 1898.

Will Kellogg developed the product into a great commercial success, in part by adding sugar to the malt and corn combination from which he made the flakes.

In 1895 Charles W. Post introduced Postum Cereal Coffee. In 1898 Grape Nuts was put on the market, Post, using a similar process of flaking as the Kellogg brothers in 1906 introduced his flaked corn.

Another important person in the history of the breakfast cereal industry is C.C Washburn, who began a flour mill in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

He formed the General Mills Company. He introduced a wheat flake that became Wheaties in the 1920s, and is still popular today.
History of flaked cereal breakfast