How is cereal made

The cereal flake they created out of corn turned out to be much more popular than the wheat flake produced at the time by competitors, and the product brought them much success.

This is particularly impressive when you consider the cereal they created is still immensely popular a hundred years later.

Will Kellogg and his company created many breakfast items, including variations of modern-day cereals like granolas and other now-common cereals like puffed rice.

In the late s, the first sweetened cereal was placed on the market. Marketed specifically at children, it became a huge success. This was the first major break from what had been considered a health food. With this new market segment of children came the need to develop new marketing techniques to appeal to youngsters. Thus began the use of cartoon characters as shills for these new sugary breakfast treat. Eventually, especially after the advent of TV in the late s, breakfast cereal became inextricably tied to cartoons.

Many argue that breakfast cereal would not have become a staple of the American breakfast table without the help of cartoon characters over the decades.

Other additives would soon be included in the recipes at the factories. During World War II, advertisers hyped vitamin additives to help fuel the American public during meat and other shortages during the war effort. Around this time too, Kellogg and others began experimenting with chemical additives to increase the shelf life of cereals.

This ushered in a whole new line of flavors and colors to appeal to the taste habits of the baby boomer generation and beyond. Where does this product originate? What goes into the process of manufacturing the end product? The basic ingredient of most breakfast cereals starts off as a cereal grain such as wheat, corn, oat or rice. Grains are hardy plants that can be grown in most parts of the world. Rice has specific growing needs, and a lot of rice planting is done under water, making it more geographically specific.

Wheat can grow anywhere from the Artic regions to below the equator. Raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which believed in the imminent end of the world and the second coming of Christ, Dr. In , he took over a church-founded health institute in Battle Creek, Michigan, which he built into the world-famous medical spa and resort known as the Battle Creek Sanitarium.

Having studied gorillas in zoos, and seeing that they had four to five bowel movements a day, he prescribed his patients to do the same—and tried to serve foods that would help that process along.

A postcard of the Kellogg's factory in Battle Creek, Michigan. Around , Dr. Kellogg concocted a twice-baked mixture of flour, oats and cornmeal, which he began smashing into small pieces for serving after a patient broke her tooth on a biscuit version.

According to company history, it was one night in when a batch of wheat-based cereal dough was accidentally left out for an extended period of time, causing it to ferment. When rolled out into thin sheets, the slightly moldy dough produced perfect large, thin flakes that became crispy and tasty in the oven. Over the next several years, Will Kellogg kept experimenting with the recipe, and figured out that corn, rather than wheat, produced even crunchier, crispier flakes. The younger Kellogg added sugar and began mass-marketing them, including the first in-box prize.

A health clinician accidentally spilled a wheat bran mixture onto a hot stove, creating what would come to be called Wheaties. Rice Krispies, with its characters Snap, Crackle and Pop, soon became a close rival. It was intended to feed followers of Ralstonism, a strict, racist social movement that included a belief in controlling the minds of others.

The name Chex, a rice version and the first recipe for Chex Mix would not arrive until the s. Cheerios appeared as CheeriOats but were quickly renamed.

After World War II, cereal consumption increased with the advent of the baby boom, and sugar became a selling point. Bruce, Scott, and Bill Crawford. Faber and Faber, Fast, Robert B. Caldwell, eds.

American Association of Cereal Chemists, Dworetzky, Tom. Fast, R. Kellogg Company. Toggle navigation. Made How Volume 3 Cereal Cereal. Periodicals Dworetzky, Tom. Other Kellogg Company. Other articles you might like:.

Also read article about Cereal from Wikipedia. User Contributions: 1. Useful information. I have always wondered how these nice food stuffs which brighten our days are made.

Great article!