Before there was the Impossible Burger, there was Protose.

Though it was made from peanuts and wheat gluten, early 1900s advertisements and cookbooks claimed it looked like meat, tasted like meat and smelled like meat.

It was developed in 1899 at the Battle Creek Sanitarium and later sold through mail order by the Battle Creek Food Co. under its founder, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.

And, with plant-based faux meats filling grocery story coolers around the country, it's a part of Kellogg's legacy that now seems ahead of its time.

“It’s the first mass-marketed fake meat products in America," said Adam Shprintzen, the author of "Vegetarian Crusade" and a history professor at Marywood University.

"The Kellogg food empire was well ahead of the cycle in terms of the idea of creating meat substitutes. It sparks a mini revolution from the turn of the 20th century until the 1920s."

Battle Creek was once an epicenter for vegetarianism, and a trailblazer in the plant-based food market.

That includes fake meat, which it seems is baked into the city's history.

Health reform catalyst

The reform movement that turned Battle Creek into a health mecca at the turn of the century was sparked by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The Protestant sect was born from the ashes of the Millerite Movement. William Miller, a New York farmer and lay preacher, had predicted that Jesus would return to earth on Oct. 22, 1844, and gathered around him tens of thousands of followers. That day came to be known in the movement as "The Great Disappointment."

After the apocalyptic events didn't unfold as expected, many former Millerites found inspiration in Ellen G. White, who had that December the first of what she would later say were some 2,000 visions. Something had happened, she would tell Miller's disappointed followers, just not what they had expected.

White would become one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which would be shaped by her visions, including a call for health reform. The church became actively involved in vegetarianism by the 1863, and, three years later, opened the Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek, later known as the Sanitarium.

J.H. Kellogg would become its physician-in-chief in 1876 and would lead the spa to worldwide acclaim by pioneering preventative health care, based on the principals of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Brian Wilson, professor of American religious history at Western Michigan University and author of "Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the Religion of Biologic Living" said the vegetarian movement in America was greatly influenced by Seventh-day Adventists and J.H. Kellogg.

"This (vegetarian) idea had been floating around the U.S. for a while, but was still not a mainstream practice," he said. "(White) gave a number of Biblical reasons for it... Meat eating was causing the degeneration of the human race, or (rather), was one of the leading causes. These ideas could be counteracted if people adapted a vegetarian diet. It would also have moral consequences, as there's a real strong religious justification for vegetarianism."

Though the town was still in its infancy, hoards of the elite would flock to the "Queen City" to spend time at the world-famous health and wellness spa, including Presidents Warren G. Harding and William Howard Taft, Amelia Earhart, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and C.W. Post.

A serendipitous event inside the Sanitarium's experimental kitchen in 1896 would in essence change America's breakfast-eating habits, and cause a ripple effect that created Battle Creek as we know it.

It would also mark a watershed moment in the development of meat substitutes.

Beefing brothers

The story goes that with J.H. Kellogg as supervisor, younger brother Will Keith Kellogg was working in the Sanitarium's experimental kitchen when he accidentally left some boiled wheat berry sitting out, causing it to grow stale.

Rather than throw it away, the brothers sent it through rollers and toasted it, resulting "flakes" they would serve to Sanitarium guests.

With that, corn flakes were born.

The Kellogg brothers feuded over the addition of sugar and the commercial appeal of their products, a beef that would lead W.K. to form his own business in 1906, the "Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company," now known as the Kellogg Co.

The timing was also fortuitous, as the country was becoming more conscious about what it put on its breakfast table.

The nation was shifting away from an agricultural-based economy and a growing middle class left more people sedentary in their work and leisure. That, combined with the eating habits of the time, created an epidemic of indigestion. In his book, "Cornflake Crusade," the late author Gerald Carson coined the term, "The Great American Stomach Ache."

"Essentially, digestive disease and indigestion was chronic," Wilson said."Look at what they ate: a lot of pork, beef, animal fat and butter, lots of carbohydrates, biscuits and gravy, very few fruits and vegetables. Eating a raw salad was seen as something novel."

Mock meat comes full circle

On the heels of his brother's newfound success and a growing consumer base that was open to a more plant-based diet, J.H. Kellogg saw his company go through several iterations before settling on "The Battle Creek Food Co." in 1921.

The Battle Creek Food Co. focused almost entirely on developing the soy products that Sanitarium guests enjoyed.

However, the product that served as the forefather to modern imitation meat was the soy-less "Protose." Marketed as "vegetable meat," it was said to be rich in iron, lime and protein for "body building."

While J.H. Kellogg helped plant the seed of meat alternatives in the public consciousness, another group of Seventh-day Adventists led the effort to develop a more palatable imitation meat product.

Special Foods was founded in Worthington, Ohio, in 1939 on the principles of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Using the Battle Creek Food Co. as its model, it specialized in "nut meats."

Following World War II, when mandatory meat rationing had ceased, the company re-branded itself as Worthington Foods, Inc. By 1960, it had acquired the rights to manufacture and market Battle Creek Food Co. products following the death of J.H. Kellogg.

The company launched its frozen food line of soy-based meatless products into supermarkets and grocery stores nationwide in 1975 under the name MorningStar Farms, which would continue to sell Protose until 2000.

The Kellogg Co. purchased Worthington Foods for $307 million in 1999, acquiring the MorningStar Farms brand. Kellogg sold Worthington in 2014, but retained the MorningStar line of products.

Fake meat revival

Trish Case seared a Beyond Burger on a grill in downtown Battle Creek.

The plant-based meatless patty sizzled on the grill for a bit before the owner of VeggZ Cafe tossed it in a bun, dressed it in condiments and handed it over to a customer.

"Beyond Burger is amazing," she said. "Doesn’t have the cow or cholesterol."

VeggZ is among a growing number of eateries in Battle Creek currently offering the meat-like substitutes.

The Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger market themselves as the closest plant-based alternative to a traditional beef burger patty in terms of taste and texture. The Beyond Burger even "bleeds" by using beet juice extract.

Fast-food chains in Battle Creek, like Burger King and Qudoba, are already offering meat alternatives on their menus.

The Kellogg Co.'s MorningStar Farms brand recently announced it will launch its "Incogmeato" burger in 2020. Countless other eateries are testing fake meat products in various markets.

MORE: Kellogg Co. to release plant-based "Incogmeato" in 2020

Consumers are giving them reason to. A 2017 Nielsen study showed the rising tide of plant-based meat sales grew at a rate of 6% over that calendar year. Beyond Meat alone reported $88 million in sales in 2018, an increase of 170%.

It's not because more Americans are becoming vegetarians. A 2018 Gallup poll showed that 5% of Americans identify as vegetarians, the same number recorded in 1999. Veganism also held steady at around 3%.

What has changed is the number of people actively reducing the amount of meat they consume in a semi-vegetarian diet dubbed "flexitarianism."

"Data shows us that mainstream consumers – led by Millennials and Gen Z – are eating more plant-forward foods for many reasons, including taste, health, sustainability and more choice on menus," said Sara Young, general manager of the MorningStar Farms Plant-Based Proteins Department.

"With our commitment to be 100% plant-based by 2021, we are ensuring more consumers can enjoy the goodness of our products, no matter where they sit on the plant-based spectrum."

Through its subscription box service, the Battle Creek non-profit Sprout offers locally-made meat substitutes in Veggie and Black Bean Burgers from Ope's in Portage and Vegan Sausage from Nutcase in Grand Rapids.

"Our No. 1 mission is to support the local economy, but also in this area, we have a growing vegan population and we want to make sure vegans are accommodated," said Sprout Box coordinator Dana Edwards, who is herself a vegan. “I do cook and prepare a lot of my own food. There is a lot more convenient food out there that is unhealthy, processed, classified as junk food. Ope’s uses all certified organic products, all gluten free.

"It’s gotten easier and easier as going vegan has become more mainstream."

Shprintzen offered that, if today's climate seems ripe for businesses to embrace fake meat, it's due in part to the groundwork laid in Battle Creek in the early 20th century.

“(Businesses) are certainly hitting upon a spirit of people who are more ethically conscious of their dietary practices," he said. "As much as it’s easy to think about the strange ideas Dr. Kellogg had, what was going on in Battle Creek is it was getting people to think about the implications of dietary choice, and that's part of the story that leads to where we are today."

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS: An earlier edition of this article incorrectly stated the first name of Kellogg Co. founder Will Keith Kellogg.

Matthew Miller contributed to this story. Nick Buckley can be reached at nbuckley@battlecreekenquirer.com or 269-966-0652. Follow him on Twitter:@NickJBuckley