The Kellogg Brothers

16th January 2022

Liz: Hello and welcome to Bread and Thread, a podcast about food and domestic history. I’m Liz

Hazel: And I’m Hazel. We are two friends who studied archaeology together and love history, domestic history, and making things, and also foods. So, we normally like to talk a little bit about that before we get on to our main topic for the podcast, so what have you been up to recently?

Liz: I have been getting very into crocheting earflap hats

Hazel: Ok, I have seen one of these, but you’ve done another one, right?

Liz: Yeah, so I made one for me that looks like an owl, because owls are amazing and I love them

Hazel: Wow

Liz: And then I made one for Pencil of The Probably Bad Podcast, that looks like a cat

Hazel: Aww

Liz: And I’m making a lizard one for Nick, and a generally brightly-coloured one for my sister, who is also one of our patrons, so hi Emma

Hazel: It’s fantastic. Hats for all, and all for hats

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: How long do they take you, ‘cause you seem to whip them up quite quickly

Liz: Each one takes me about a day, but I don’t know in terms of actual hours

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Because it’s more doing it while watching and listening to things

Hazel: Mm-hmm. That is neat. I love the owl hat

Liz: The owl hat is the best hat I’ve ever owned

Hazel: (laughs) So it should be

Liz: So what about you?

Hazel: I have started a quilt

Liz: Oh

Hazel: (laughs) I began the year like “ok, no new projects, get some finished”, but I’ve been wanting to make a really fancy patchwork quilt for a while, and so I figured now is the time. I was in town yesterday, and one of the charity shops has a big box of donated fabric scraps and bits of old clothes and things that are 25p each

Liz: Mm-hmm

Hazel: So I got a whole bunch of fabric, and now I am patchworking, and it is a lot of fun. I’m making…I’ll send you a link to what it’s meant to look like, I’ll put this on the twitter as well. It’s a reproduction

Liz: You say you’ll put things on twitter…

Hazel: I will!

Liz: (laughs)

Hazel: I will. I was doing so well, and then the scheduling changed a little bit and then I was like “oh”

Liz: (inaudible)

Hazel: But yeah, it’s a quilt from the 1890s in America, and it is probably a little bit ambitious for my first try. I saw a picture of this, and then I went to find the original quilt, and then I thought “it’ll be fine, I’ll just do some maths and figure it out”. I could have bought a pattern. There are several patterns for this, which I’ll link to, but no, I had to do it the hard way, and I got the compasses out and starting drawing things. I think I’ve figured it out, but, to anyone who doesn’t want to spend 3 hours on that, I would recommend just getting a pattern

(both laugh)

Hazel: But yeah, it’s been fun. I went hardcore DIY on this

Liz: You did. It’s the little gremlin that lives in your brain and says “you could do that”

Hazel: Exactly. I could, but at what cost (laughs)

Liz: Several times more than it would cost to buy the object

Hazel: Exactly! (laughs) But yeah, that’s really fun. It’s a bit of an undertaking, there’s apparently about 300 pieces in each block

Liz: Wow

Hazel: So that’s gonna be a thing. But we’ll see. It’ll probably be with for a few years. I will try and keep the discord updated, and yeah, today, the day of recording, is Twelfth Night, so we will be out wassailing in a little bit which, if you have not heard of wassailing, it is a traditional custom in Britain, I don’t know about it being in other places, but it might well be, where you go and bless the apple trees on Twelfth Night. I mean, the custom that I know of is on Twelfth Night, but I think other areas might do it at different times, I’m not sure. Some at Christmas as well, but anyway, we do it on Twelfth Night, and you go and recite a blessing for the apple trees to ensure their fruitfulness in the coming year, and some places wassail their animals on farm, I think

Liz: That sounds like a disconcerting experience for a sheep

Hazel: Yeah. So you recite a little blessing, and you sing a song, and you pour some cider on the tree roots, and you drink some cider yourselves, obviously, that’s the whole point. I have a glass of cider right now, I thought it would be seasonal

Liz: For our American followers that is hard cider, not apple juice

Hazel: Oh yes, yes. All cider in the UK is alcoholic, and quite adamantly so

Liz: That is the best description I’ve ever heard

Hazel: Unless you’re drinking Strongbow. Anyway, yeah, that is what I’ll be doing later on. What are we gonna talk about today?

Liz: I thought, I’ve been putting it off for a while, but Kellogg’s have been in the news, because of strikes and things

Hazel: It has indeed

Liz: So I thought I would talk about Mr Kellogg

Hazel: (gasps) Oh yes

Liz: And the other Mr Kellogg, because it turns out they were brothers

Hazel: I have been waiting for this for a while

Liz: (laughs)

Hazel: I am excited to learn more about the interesting history of the Kellogg brand

Liz: Ok, so the Kellogg brothers were two of 11 children born two Mr and Mrs Kellogg

Hazel: Gosh, that’s quite a family

Liz: Yeah. In Tyrone, Michigan. They worked in their father’s broom factory

Hazel: Right

Liz: But, as a part of their religious ideas, they were Seventh Day Adventists

Hazel: Ok. I’m not entirely sure what that involves

Liz: So it’s a branch of Christianity

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: Not surprisingly, from just, history. They believe in things like the imminence of the second coming, is a big one

Hazel: Ok

Liz: They had an event in 1844 where they were convinced that the second coming was happening, that was known as The Millerite Great Disappointment

Hazel: Oh no

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: That’s a shame

Liz: Didn’t happen

Hazel: Hmm. That’s disappointing

Liz: So yeah, so John, who was the older of these two main brothers, there were other siblings, but we’re just talking about John and Will

Hazel: The relevant Kelloggs

Liz: The relevant Kelloggs. So, John actually did go to medical school, and became a doctor

Hazel: Ok

Liz: And eventually took over running a health resort in Michigan, known as the Western Health Reform Institute

Hazel: Ok, very institutional sounding. Whenabouts was this, by the way?

Liz: He became superintendent of it in 1876

Hazel: Right

Liz: And Will Kellogg actually became a bookkeeper there. So, health resorts were quite a big thing at this time, you’ve probably heard of people going places like Bath to take the waters

Hazel: Yeah, definitely. That’s a central theme of every Jane Austen novel

Liz: Oh yeah. So, the idea in the US was a lot more going places for the air

Hazel: Ok

Liz: So you’d have a lot of these places in mountains, or in drier areas, where you’d go and get the air for your health, and there’d be…enemas were a really big thing, for some reason?

Hazel: Ok

Liz: And very what would now be referred to as “clean” diets. Lots of vegetables and nuts and little to no animal products, ‘cause there was this general idea that, which kind of comes from the older stuff of miasmas and that, that illnesses were to some extent caused by impurities

Hazel: Ok

Liz: So you’d have these vegetarian diets, enemas, fresh air, just being in sunlight

Hazel: Wow, that one came back

Liz: As a general way of cleansing your body

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: And increasing your wellness, which is a word that John Kellogg actually used himself

Hazel: Really? Ok

Liz: Yeah, wellness is an old concept

Hazel: I guess, apart from the enemas, all those things sound relatively sensible

Liz: Yeah. Yeah, Kellogg himself believed that a lot of disease was caused by gut bacteria

Hazel: Ok

Liz: And that you had to balance your gut bacteria to healthy, hence the enemas

Hazel: (laughs) Ok

Liz: But a big goal of the Seventh Day Adventists, or a big mantra for them, I guess, was the reduction of self-pleasure, shall we say, in order to keep the clean tag?

Hazel: I see

Liz: Which was incredibly unhealthy

Hazel: Is it now?

Liz: It’s bad for you, and it causes all manner of maladies

Hazel: Ah, I see

Liz: So, yeah, this resort, which he renamed Battle Creek Sanitarium, to emphasise the sanitary, healthy nature of it, and a big thing there, as well as all these different therapies, was the use of dietetics, or the idea that changing your diet can change your health, which is where it becomes relevant to our area, because one of the things that he actually created was granola

Hazel: Oh! Like the concept of granola?

Liz: The concept of granola

Hazel: Ok

Liz: So in the late 1870s, basically if you were rich you’d probably have egg, bacon, that sort of stuff for breakfast, and if you were poor you’d have basically gruel, like a thin porridge, and he basically looked at that and went “you know what’s great about these breakfasts? It’s the one that tastes like nothing. It’s gotta be supper good for you”

Hazel: Oh…

Liz: Because bland food stops you getting so overexcited and doing things you shouldn’t be doing

Hazel: Right. Just gonna say, that’s never stopped me

Liz: I feel the need to point out at this point that one of the big names in creating this concept of a connection between bland foods and health was Ellen G White

Hazel: That name doesn’t ring a bell for me

Liz: She was a Seventh Day Adventist

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Known for her religious visions. So clearly a big believer in the scientific method there

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: She was…her ideas were very much divinely inspired, rather than based on science

Hazel: Uh-huh

Liz: But she, you know, she did have some good ideas, like smoking is bad, eating a balanced diet is good, even if her idea of a balanced diet wasn’t necessarily what we would call a balanced diet. She wasn’t entirely on the wrong track

Hazel: I mean, yeah, I guess none of this is entirely baseless. Diet does affect health, in certain ways

Liz: Mmm. Yeah, it’s interesting them not being entirely wrong

Hazel: Mmm

Liz: But yeah, so he wanted to create a soft, easy to eat, but still relatively bland breakfast food

Hazel: Ok

Liz: So he made a bread out of wheat, oats, and corn, and called it granula, which was already a brand of breakfast cereal, so then in 1881 he changed the name to granola

Hazel: Right! He literally invented the word granola. No way. I didn’t, I don’t know where I thought the word came from, but I didn’t realise it was originally a brand

Liz: Yeah, it’s one of those things that’s become just a generic thing

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: So yeah, he set up a food company to develop and market healthy food products in 1890, which Will Kellogg was involved in as well

Hazel: And were they healthy?

Liz: I mean, probably healthier than eating eggs and bacons every day?

Hazel: I guess so

Liz: Probably more nutrients than, you know, a relatively thin porridge made of just whatever grains you can get hold of that day

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: But obviously, the most well-known product of the Kelloggs’ is cornflakes

Hazel: Of course

Liz: So, apparently there’s kind of a debate about which Kellogg actually invented cornflakes, whether it was John, Will, or John’s wife Ella

Hazel: Ok. I was gonna say, I think Ella Kellogg is a very just orally pleasing name

Liz: It feels good to say. So yeah, there’s suggestions that either Ella had the idea of rolling it out, or John was inspired in a dream to roll it out. I think I lean more towards the former

Hazel: The idea that cornflakes came from a dream is…I’m gonna say, I think they should lead with that one their branding

Liz: I mean, you might as well at this point

Hazel: Divinely inspired cornflakes

Liz: But yeah, so the granola dough, through, whoever decided to do it, was rolled out, and broke into these little flakes, which were then baked, and Will Kellogg apparently then figured out how to do it in a reliable way that would create a mass-producable product

Hazel: Ok

Liz: But there is some industrial espionage

Hazel: Ooh, cornflake spies

Liz: Not quite cornflake spies

Hazel: I guess they’d be granola spies

Liz: So apparently anyone could visit the sanitarium and observe the process of making cornflakes

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Which seems like an oversight in terms of IP security, but I guess that wasn’t really a concept as much

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: Despite the fact that industrial espionage had been a thing since at least the beginning of the industrial revolution, and probably earlier

Hazel: I mean, I’d guess as long as people were making money from having good ideas

Liz: Yeah, CW Post apparently stole the idea after visiting, and set up what later became General Foods

Hazel: (gasp) Shocking

Liz: Which upset Will Kellogg so much that he left the company

Hazel: Oh. What, left his own company?

Liz: Apparently

Hazel: He didn’t do anything to the other guy, he just left his own company?

Liz: He became an Arabian horse breeder

Hazel: I was not expecting that, but good for him?

Liz: Also a philanthropist, because he’s made a lot of money by that point

Hazel: (laughing)

Liz: But yeah, in 1825 he became an Arabian horse breeder

Hazel: Well yeah I guess, if you’ve made enough money you can just be like “alright, I’ve had enough of this, I’m gonna go buy some horses”

Liz: I mean you might as well at that point. But also, interestingly, during The Great Depression, Kellogg’s were very conscious of providing employment, and made sure that everyone in Battle Creek that wanted a shift could get one, so they could, you know, work and feed their families. Hint hint, modern day Kellogg’s

Hazel: (pointedly) Yeah, that was good of them, wasn’t it. Almost like that’s how the business should be

Liz: Clearly we need to bring back The Battle Creek Toasted Cornflake Company

Hazel: (laughs)

Liz: Instead of Kellogg’s. ‘Cause that’s what it was called

Hazel: We need to reset Kellogg’s to factory settings. Get it? ‘Cause it’s a factory. Eeeey

Liz: Press the big red button

Hazel: The big red button that is installed in the Kellogg’s factory that transports you back to 1881

Liz: I mean, I would press it at this point, we can just try again

Hazel: That’s true, I would also press it, and then we can take technologies with us from the modern times, and become millionaires. Foolproof

Liz: But yeah, apparently John Kellogg also regularly corresponded with George Washington Carver about peanuts and sweet potatoes

Hazel: Ok

Liz: We did cover George Washington Carver on an earlier episode, and his peanut innovations

Hazel: Yes

Liz: But yeah, apparently Kellogg was a big fan of nut butter, and it was served in Battle Creek Sanitarium as an alternative to butter, rather than as a source of protein, it was just “put that on your bread instead”, which I find interesting, ‘cause

Hazel: Yeah, it’s not a butter substitute

Liz: Yeah, the name does suggest that it would be, so I guess it makes a kind of sense that at some point someone did that, but also I think beyond “you can spread it on stuff”, there is nothing, there is no comparison between peanut butter and butter

Hazel: I think, well, does butter refer to the process of turning the fats into a spread? Is that what makes it a butter? ‘Cause, you know, you can get body butter as well, I dunno

Liz: I’m gonna find out

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: ‘Cause I always assumed it was just a comparison in texture

Hazel: Think it might be, ‘cause I made fruit butters before, which is kind of similar to a curd, I think, but

Liz: Oh yeah. I’ve heard of apple butter

Hazel: Yeah, so I think it might be something to do with that, or with the consistency of thing, but either way, it’s still not, it doesn’t do the same things as butter-butter

Liz: Yeah, it looks like butter has meant butter since at least Old English

Hazel: Ok

Liz: So I think it’s more of a textural comparison

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: But yeah, apparently peanuts as a health food were a thing for a while. There was a product called Cheese Nut

Hazel: Oh, I don’t like that

Liz: Which was a peanut and cheese snack

Hazel: Ew

Liz: It’s all high-protein and great

Hazel: Hmm

Liz: But yeah, Kellogg apparently did apply for two different patents relating to nut butters, the different ways of producing it, and he also introduced a substance called nutose, which was a peanut-based mutton substitute

Hazel: Um, yeah, I guess. Would that count as a nut roast?

Liz: I guess it would

Hazel: (laughs) I mean, I get how that’s a substitute for mutton in terms of its protein, but can you get peanuts to taste like mutton?

Liz: Apparently there was marinating involved

Hazel: Ooh. Do like a bit of marinating

Liz: So yeah, you can probably tell from this, he was a big fan of the idea of living healthily being a good thing for you body, and also your soul, because he was a very dedicated member of the Seventh Day Adventists

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: Yeah, and his ideas about gut bacteria came from being an early advocate of germ theory, which is pretty cool

Hazel: Right

Liz: And he was anti-smoking and all that stuff. He was, however, because there’s always a however, a founder of the Race Betterment Foundation

Hazel: Oh dear. I was actually just about to be like “so I gues maybe he, overall, not so bad”, and then you said that

Liz: Yeah, he was also a prominent eugenicist

Hazel: Oh no

Liz: In the racist and ableist ways

Hazel: Oh dear

Liz: And helped enact laws to sterilise people who weren’t deemed to be fit to breed. We started off so well, John

Hazel: Yeah. You could have just spent it all on horses, but no, you had to do bad

Liz: Yeah, I don’t wanna get too far into that, because it’s incredibly depressing and also, you know, we all know what that involves

Hazel: Mmm. Ok. Well, I admit there is a lot more to cornflakes than I originally thought

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: I’m gonna say they’re not my favourite cereal, but I do enjoy a cornflake tart

Liz: Cornflake tart?

Hazel: Yeah, have you not had a cornflake tart?

Liz: I have never heard of such a thing

Hazel: We used to have it at school. It’s when it’s pastry, and then jam, and then crushed cornflakes on top

Liz: That does sound nice

Hazel: Delicious if you’re 8

Liz: I’ve had…the thing I used to occasionally have at school with cornflakes was, you know those little chocolate rice krispie cakes?

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: Used to get like those, but with cornflakes

Hazel: Aaah

Liz: And you’d go to Greggs and places like that near easter, and they’d have them to look like little nests, with mini eggs in

Hazel: Aww that’s cute

Liz: I’m sure the Kellogg’s would have heartily disapproved

Hazel: Oh yeah, I do find it quite ironic that it was originally created as this super health food, and now you can get sugar frosted cornflakes, and chocolate ones

Liz: But, you know what, based on what other beliefs he had, I’m glad that it goes against everything he believed in

Hazel: (laughs) If you want to stick it to Mr Kellogg, eat those sugary cornflakes, preferably the knock-off ones

Liz: Oh yeah. He didn’t have any kids of his own, but did foster many many children, and adopted eight of those. He and his wife were foster parents to 42 children

Hazel: Wow

Liz: Interestingly, considering his views, including some black children

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Adopted eight of the children that they fostered

Hazel: This has been a very mixed bag

Liz: Yeah, he’s an interesting man. But yeah, he died in Battle Creek in 1943

Hazel: Ok

Liz: So this was a bit of a short episode, but it’s one that I’ve been kind of waiting for the right time to do for a while, and I feel like laughing at the cornflakes man is a good antidote to last, the last episode

Hazel: Yes, I think so. Yeah, definitely a lot more to that than I first thought. Who did the Kellogg empire get passed on to? Did it stay in the family, or… I assume it’s now just a free market company, but

Liz: Yeah, it seems like it went to Will Kellogg, and he’s actually the one that was responsible for making sure people got shifts during The Great Depression

Hazel: Ah, ok

Liz: And then, yeah, it is still Kellogg’s, it was not acquired

Hazel: Oh, right

Liz: They bought other companies, but yeah, they are still based in Battle Creek, Michigan

Hazel: Ok. I wasn’t expecting that, for some reason I thought it was a big, well, it is a large corporation, but

Liz: Arguably the biggest cereal company, certainly one of the biggest food companies

Hazel: Yeah, I was quite surprised by, when I was reading about all the strikes and stuff, it was listing some of the other brands they owned, and it’s a lot

Liz: I think the thing is most of the brands aren’t ones that we in the UK come across

Hazel: Yeah, I didn’t recognise most of them

Liz: The main ones that I’ve heard of are the ones that have popped up on American shows I’ve watches, rather than ones I’ve actually eaten

Hazel: But, you know, millennials are killing cereal, so who knows how long it’ll last

Liz: I have heard this

Hazel: (laughs) I have to say, I’ve never really…it’s not that I don’t like cereal, it’s just that most of the times…I don’t drive, so I never want to carry a box of cereal home

Liz: I guess the thing is, it’s, these days it’s just the default breakfast

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: Honestly, in kind of a reversal, I see porridge as a little bit more of a treat, ‘cause it takes more effort

Hazel: (laughs)

Liz: I’ll do something like stand at the stove and stir my witch’s brew of oats and milk

Hazel: I guess, yeah, it does feel very wholesome on winter mornings, as well

Liz: Mmm

Hazel: And porridge can be as gourmet as you make it

Liz: Exactly. That and the overnight oats trend

Hazel: Oh yeah

Liz: Which I jumped wholeheartedly into. I love an oat

Hazel: I tried that, and I just, I can’t get in favour of cold oats

Liz: That is fair

Hazel: It’s just not it

Liz: I have had some success microwaving it the next say, so it just ends up being a lower effort porridge

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: But microwaving to make porridge itself is a risk, because of microwaving milk

Hazel: Oh, I usually do microwave porridge. Like a maniac

Liz: You’re braver than I am

Hazel: (laughs) I do the easy

Liz: Tried it once, and the milk did the thing that milk does when you get it too hot, and I haven’t tried it again

Hazel: Oh, I normally put it on for a little bit, and then stir it, and then put it on again, but I fully see the benefits, the convenience benefits of doing overnight oats

Liz: So yeah, that is John Harvey Kellogg, to a lesser extent William Keith Kellogg, and cornflakes

Hazel: That was a wild ride

Liz: I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you have a comment, you want to just say hi

Hazel: If you wanna yell at Kellogg’s on twitter

Liz: Yes, tweet us your favourite non-Kellogg’s breakfast cereal at breadandthread, or message it to us on tumblr at breadandthread

Hazel: We will broadcast it to our many followers

Liz: You can also email breadandthreadpodcast @ gmail.com, if you wanna secretly tell us your favourite cereal is actually a Kellogg’s one

Hazel: We won’t judge you

Liz: We won’t tell

Hazel: A little bit, anyway. You can find us on tumblr at breadandthread, and also on the youtubes at the same name, where there are audio recordings of episodes

Liz: And there will be other video content eventually

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: There’s a couple of things, I think. There is more to come. I’m gonna try and do more video content this year

Hazel: I think that is about it

Liz: We also have a patreon

Hazel: Oh yeah, we do!

(both laugh)

Hazel: We do have a patreon

Liz: We do have a patreon

(laughs)

Liz: Which is Bread and Thread, if you want access to monthly recipes, and a, fairly active at the moment actually, discord server, where we talk about things we’ve been making and baking, and just generally have a natter, because it’s kind of turned into a little knitting circle atmosphere, which I’m very much enjoying

Hazel: Nice

Liz: So yeah, we will be back next time, so…I normally say we’ll see you next time, but you know what, we will

Hazel: (laughs)

Liz: Also, support strikes

Hazel: Yeah

(music)