Kellogg’s corn flakes were invented by Dr. Kellogg as one of his anti-masturbation breakfasts he developed in the sanitarium he was working.

Here’s the full interesting story.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was a man that was a bit uncomfortable about sex. He believed that sex was detrimental to physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. He personally abstained from it, and never had sex with wis wife. They were even sleeping in different rooms and adopted all of their children. But, even though Dr. Kellogg believed sex was bad, masturbation was even worse: (the article continues after the ad)

“If illicit commerce of the sexes is a heinous sin,” Kellogg wrote, “self-pollution is a crime doubly abominable.” In one of his books, he went on to catalog 39 different symptoms caused by masturbation. The symptoms included general infirmity, mood swings, boldness, acne, palpitations, epilepsy and many more.

Kellogg’s solution to all this suffering was a healthy diet. He thought that meat and certain foods increased sexual desire while cereals and nuts, could curb it. That is why, when he was working at Michigan’s Battle Creek Sanitarium, he tried to create healthy breakfasts that would help people curb masturbation. One of them was Corn flakes.

This idea for corn flakes actually began by accident when Kellogg and his younger brother, Will Keith Kellogg, left some cooked wheat to sit while they attended other issues at the sanitarium. When they returned back, they found that the wheat had gone stale. Instead of throwing it, they decided to continue the process by forcing it through rollers, in a hope to obtain long sheets of the dough. What they ended up with though, were flakes, which they then toasted and served to their patients as as healthy, ready-to-eat anti-masturbatory morning meals.

Will, which had less interest in the healthy issues and had more business sense than his brother, went on to add sugar to the corn flakes and started selling them though the Kellogg’s company. The product was patented and the rest is history.

Photo: Creative Commons, WalesOnCraic, Julia Zi / Photomaniac-ZI



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