While Corn Flakes might be the breakfast cereal you fondly ate as a child heaped with sugar, or continue to eat today (with a bit less of the sweet stuff loaded on) their beginnings weren’t always to carefree.
The truth about what Corn Flakes were originally created for will probably surprise you. And maybe disgust you a little too.
The humble cereal was first invented in the 1890s by Dr John Harvey Kellogg, who used it as a treatment for mental patients who masturbated too much. Puts a different spin on things doesn’t it?
The superintendent at a "health resort" called Battle Creek Sanitarium for people suffering from compulsive masturbation and constipation, Kellogg put his patients under a strict, and most importantly very, very bland, vegetarian diet which banned alcohol, tobacco and caffeine.
He believed the lack of sugar and spice (i.e any hint of flavour whatsoever) would reduce a person's sex-drive.
Around this time, the commercialisation of cereal was booming and Dr Kellogg's brother, William Kellogg saw an opportunity to make some serious cash on the back of these crispy, masturbation-curbing flakes.
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The big problem? The taste (or lack there of). This caused an argument between the brothers about whether to make the cereal more palatable by adding sugar. Dr Kellogg saw as an "adulterant" and William as a necessity to stop the product tasting like 'horse-food'.\
Obviously we know who won (thank goodness), and the Corn Flakes similar to what we know today were made available to the US public in 1906.
It took almost twenty years for Corn Flakes to arrive in Australia, but when they did they proved so popular, a factory was quickly set up in Botany to keep up with demand.
Strangely, we've now got a hankering for a big milk-drenched bowl of the cereal.
