Dark History - 182: The Cult of Kellogg: Cornflakes, Celibacy, and Colonics??

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Hi friends, happy Wednesday!  The other day I was craving a big fat bowl of Honey Smacks cereal with whole milk. When I was a kid, that was luxury to me. But I hadn’t had them in forever so I didn’t even know if they were still around.  You know me - I googled “HONEY SMACKS… DISCONTINUED??” Good news, they’re around. Bad news… I found out about Kellogg’s, the company that makes them, has been in some hot water lately.  We all know inflation sucks and it’s affecting *everything*, especially food prices. Tons of families across America are struggling to put food on the table.  So the media asked a Kelloggs CEO for his reaction on that. And his response? He essentially said, [SARCASTIC] “MAYBE THEY SHOULD EAT CEREAL FOR DINNER.”  Awkward. But this did get me thinking - why *do* we eat cereal for breakfast? Well I looked into it, and I stumbled into the world of John Harvey Kellogg, the man behind Kelloggs. And my mind was blown.  Because behind that sweet little box of Honey Smacks is a freaky origin story. We’re talkin’ culty health retreats, yogurt enemas, and a crusade against masturbation.  So buckle up if you dare, for the Dark History of …Kelloggs.  I sometimes talk about my Good Reads in the show. So here's the link if you want to check it out. IDK. lol: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/139701263-bailey ________ FOLLOW ME AROUND Tik Tok: https://bit.ly/3e3jL9v Instagram: http://bit.ly/2nbO4PR Facebook: http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6 Twitter: http://bit.ly/2yT4BLV Pinterest: http://bit.ly/2mVpXnY Youtube: http://bit.ly/1HGw3Og Snapchat: https://bit.ly/3cC0V9d Discord: https://discord.gg/BaileySarian RECOMMEND A STORY HERE: [e-mail] Business Related Emails: [e-mail] Business Related Mail: Bailey Sarian 4400 W. Riverside Dr., Ste 110-300 Burbank, CA 91505 ________ This podcast is Executive Produced by: Bailey Sarian and Joey Scavuzzo Head Writer: Katie Burris Research provided by: Coleen Smith and Dr. Thomas Messersmith Special thank you to our Historical Consultant: Heather Arndt Anderson, author of “Breakfast: A History”. Director: Brian Jaggers Additional Editing: Julien Perez and Maria Norris Hair: Angel Gonzalez Makeup: Roni Herrera ________ So if you’ve been sitting on that “someday” idea, Squarespace makes it possible to launch it today. Head to https://www.squarespace.com/DARKHISTORY for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, use the code DARKHISTORY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to https://www.zocdoc.com/DARKHISTORY to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.  Upgrade to shipping software that does more than keep up with your business. ShipStation propels it forward. Start your sixty-day free trial at https://www.shipstation.com/darkhistory.

The other day I was craving a big fat bowl of Apple Jacks, the cereal, with some milk. When I was a kid, that was a luxury to me. But I hadn't had them in forever, so, you know, I was like, they're still around, right? Good news, of course, they're still around. Bad news, okay, when I was Googling, I don't know why I was Googling Apple Jacks. I just was, okay? But I went down this rabbit hole.

I found out about Kellogg's, the company, the company that makes them. They have been in some hot water lately. We all know that inflation sucks, and it's affecting everything, especially food prices, and tons of families across America are struggling to put food on the table. So the media asked, like, a Kellogg CEO for his reaction on that. They're like, what do you have to say, sir? So we're advertising about cereal for dinner, if you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they might otherwise do.

He essentially said, maybe they should eat cereal for dinner. Not the best response. And so I started Googling some more. And I stumbled into the world of John Harvey Kellogg, you know, the man behind Kellogg's. And boy, my mind was blown. Because behind that sweet, delicious box of Apple Jacks

is a freaky origin story. Like one, you will not see coming. I'm talking culty health retreats. yogurt enemas, and a crusade against masturbation. What? I know. What does it have to do with cereal? So listen, buckle up for the dark history of Kellogg.

Hi, friends. How are you? My name is Bailey Sarian, and I'd like to welcome you to my podcast, Dark History. Listen here, we believe history does not have to be boring. It might be tragic. Sometimes it's happy. But either way, it's our dark history. Now, before we get into it, don't forget to like and subscribe,

because I'm always here posting new content. And let me know what you think in the comment section down below. Because at the end, I read comments. Did you know that? Well, I do. But now, I need to tell you about Mr. Kellogg, okay, because there's something weird going on with this person, this figure, this man, this odd one. So, like any good cult origin story, this one starts with religion.

So back in 1852 in a place called Tyrone Township in Michigan, John Harvey Kellogg was born. So his mom, Ann, was the second wife of his dad. John Kellogg, Sr. And Daddy John was a very intense man who believed very strongly in the Second Coming of Christ and was a follower of Sabbitarian Adventism. Adventism. And it might sound familiar because, you know, these were the people who would go on to become the Seventh-day Adventist or SDA. Maybe you've heard of them. So religious, okay? And that's okay. That's okay. Fine. When John was four years old, baby John. When John was four years old, his family moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, to be closer to the SDA church community. Now, I guess, you know, in Battle Creek, things were a little

depressing because, like, the entire community believed that the world was going to end, like, any day now. So, I mean, that's pretty depressing to live in that, thinking it's going to end any day now. I could see that, yeah. When John was little, his health was in bad shape. He had something called rickets, which is basically like a vitamin D deficiency that messes up bone development. Now, because of this, John would only grow to be five foot four and was like very frail. And later on, it kind of makes sense that he would become obsessed with controlling everything about people's bodies because his own body had like kind of failed him early on. Now, when he was growing up, I guess John wasn't allowed to go to school.

According to his Adventist parents, what was the point of going to school if the world was ending, you know? Thankfully, a local pastor pretty much told John's family that, you know, he should leave the house and get an education. So he did. And once they let him, like, crack open a book, it was over. John was smart, okay? He was very smart. He learned fast. He taught himself everything.

And by his teens, he had already gotten a job work. working at a religious newspaper. The newspaper was called the Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, which was like the publishing side of the SDA church. So John was writing, he was editing, he was rubbing shoulders with the right people. So this couple named James and Ellen White,

they were like the religious power couple behind the whole SDA church movement. Apparently Ellen was hit head with a rock oh sorry well i guess ellen she got hit in the head with a rock and ever since then she said that she had divine visions could happen to you and one of her visions was that young john kellogg was chosen to be a big part of their movement so one of like ellen white's big obsessions in the church was sexual purity. She wrote all about the health problems that she believed were associated with masturbation. She said for men, masturbation could result in, quote, imbecility, dwarfed forms,

crippled limbs, misshapen heads, and deformity of every description. Now Ellen warned the people that masturbation in women could lead to loss of memory, eyesight, weak spines, cancer, And eventually, insanity. Damn. And John really looked up to Ellen, so, like, he took that message to heart. Of course. You know, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to, what am I going to death?

Dwarfed, what now? He took it very seriously, okay? No masturbation. No touchy. Have you ever had, like, a random spark of an idea in the middle of the night? And you're like, oh my God, I should start a vintage, like, candle shop. Or like, I should make a blog about haunted houses. Yeah.

I'm going to remember that. And then, you know, when you actually think about it, maybe the next day or whatever, you can try to set up a website and all that jazz, and your brain just goes, I don't know what I'm doing, it's hard. And then that idea just floats away. Look, we've all been there.

Personally, sometimes the tech, you know, it can be, um, it's complicated. I'm not an IT person. I wish I was. I used to do MySpace coding. I don't know what happened. But listen, that's okay, because that's where Squarespace comes in.

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So if you've been sitting on that someday idea, Squarespace makes it possible to launch it today. Head to Squarespace.com slash dark history for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the code Dark History to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So John Kellogg is all in on the church and he starts like rising up through the ranks, absorbing everything the Adventists were putting down. And this is when like a big trend pops up that gets John's attention right away. It was called health reform. Now this was basically like the first wellness trend. But instead of like green juice and hot yoga, it was all about cold baths, bland food and making your body as pure as a lot.

possible. No meat, no booze, no caffeine, no spices, no sex, no jerk in the round, no fun, nothing, okay? So then in 1865 Ellen White she had one of her famous visions, you know, and in it she was told to build a temple of health, basically a spa. She's probably like, I need to get away from a people. I'm going to build a spa and say it was a vision. So she does. In 1866, she opens a spa in Battle Creek, Michigan, and she called it the Western Health Reform Institute. And it was basically a temple slash spa, completely run by the Adventist. So while Ellen White's spa slash temple is getting set up, John goes and he gets a degree from the University of Michigan and Bellevue in New York. And then in 1875, he comes back to Battle Creek as Dr. Kellogg. So as soon as John

is back in Michigan, he immediately joins Ellen at the Temple of Health. And one year later, when he's just 26, John takes over as superintendent. Now he's in charge and the first thing he does is rebrand the place. He renames Ellen Spa to the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Yeah, it kind of sounds, uh, it does sound very wartime port-a-potty. Yeah. And a little fun fact, side note, I don't know, Kellogg, he literally made up the word sanitarium. Sanatorium was a place like for sick people, and he wasn't interested in, in that energy. His facility was where he went to stay healthy. So he gave it the name sanitarium. So the Battle Creek Sanitarium was John Kellogg's whole life. It was everything to him. He worked 18 hours a day. He performed surgeries. He ran like food science

experiments. And this is where his ideas on like clean living start to get a little weird, a little intense. Is a lot. So the sanitarium, you know, they're like, that's kind of like a long word. So they called it the sand. So the sand essentially becomes his own laboratory for John Kellogg to run some wild experiments on real-life people, and not just any people, celebrities. Very wealthy celebrities. To the outside world, the San basically looked like a luxury retreat. It's very white lotus, okay? Meanwhile, Dr. Kellogg had a very clear mission.

Get rid of sex. Yeah. Once and for all, and by any means necessary. including surgery. Now, when I say surgery, I'm not talking about, you know, taking someone's tonsils out or like removing a bunion. What Dr. Kellogg was doing was straight up genital mutilation. He came up with a few cures that honestly sounded like,

it sounds like medieval torture techniques. He was off, okay? Listen, for young boys, his go-to surgery, was circumcision without anesthesia because in his words the pain would have a quote salutary effect on the mind end quote in other words if it hurts bad enough maybe uh they'll be too traumatized to like ever touch themselves again now for grown men he had another idea he would sew the foreskin shut with a silver wire to prevent erections yeah the real thing he Yep, he did that.

An actual wire through the skin to prevent erections. I want to see a visual, but at the same time I don't want to see a visual, but I kind of want to see a visual. He wrote, quote, The needle to which the wire is attached is passed through from one side to the other. It is now impossible for an erection to occur, end quote. I mean, I imagine it was incredibly painful. I mean, imagine going to the doctors and leaving with your member sewed up. I was like, was he the one hit in the head with the rock?

Because who comes up with that? And for girls, Kellogg recommended burning the clitoris with carbolic acid. Just pure acid. He claimed it was excellent for stopping, quote, abnormal excitement. Oh, God. Why? Why? Now, Kellogg's reason for all this was that he believed that the human body only had a limited supply of vital energy or force. And having sex drained you of this energy.

It zapped your health, and it ultimately ruined your body and your soul. So, sew it up. In 1877, just two years after he took over the sand, Dr. Kellogg writes and publishes a book called Plain Facts about Sexual Life. sexual life. Joan actually brought it with her. She has it. As you can see, she's very pure. Do birds have clits? Does it burned off girl? Are you good, girl? Okay. Yeah, I put that on my reading list because I was like, I need to know what the hell. What is he talking about here? And I mean this lovingly, but it's giving small weener energy. I bet you Kellogg had a small weener and he was like kind of mad and bitter about it so it was like kind of making everyone else suffer just giving a little bit

of that in my opinion i don't know i haven't seen it now you can read it if you want do whatever you want but i don't recommend it it's very long and dry okay i'll sum it up for you these plain facts pretty much what it says is number one sex is bad and the only thing worse is masturbation Kellogg wrote that sex essentially drains your precious life energy, and masturbation, which he called self-pollution, could supposedly cause blindness, acne, epilepsy, insanity, and even death. Oh, is that why I have acne? Yeah, okay. Kellogg fact number two, a bland diet, like one that included dry cereal and crackers, could keep sexual urges at bay.

The more flavorless your meals, the less you'll want to touch yourself. Flick your bean, have sex, enjoy anything. Kellogg fact number three. Sex should only be for procreation, never for pleasure. And if you were married, you should basically only be intimate in order to have a child, but even that was frowned upon. Best case scenario, I mean, don't even kiss your wife, okay? Because that might lead to something else.

I was a little confused by all this, honestly, because I'm like, okay, if you're part of this religious group and stuff, don't you want to procreate to make sure that your religion carries on and whatnot? So I was like, what about that, though? And I don't know. I don't know. He just did not want people having sex or touching themselves or eating good food. And John Kellogg, he practiced what he preached. He told the public that he had never had sex.

So he was the perfect guy to speak to the perks of a celibate life. But then here's the crazy thing. John Kellogg was married. That poor woman. Yes, he was married. He was married to a woman named Ella Eaton. Now Ella, she was from upstate New York, and she was very smart. By 19, she was already like the youngest graduate and valid Victorian at Alfred University,

where she got a degree in nutrition. Long story short, Ella ends up working at the sand where she and Kellogg fall in love. Or like whatever John's version of love was. They probably, I don't even know if they, did they hold hands or was that too much? I don't know. Apparently they spent their honeymoon re-reading his book together. Yeah. Plain facts about sexual life. They read it. Fun. So basically, on their honeymoon, John convinces his wife that sex was a health hazard. And they should just read instead. Very romantic, full of love. When they get back to the sand, Ella puts her nutrition degree to work and becomes the head chef of the operation. She implements all of John's specific rules about diet to make sure no. No one eating at the sand would be getting horny.

I don't know. What kind of food makes you horny? Pizza. Pizza makes me horny. What else makes me horny? Hot dogs. Yeah, but none of that, right? So in her spare time, Ella, she wrote some cookbooks.

Yeah. They have very fun and meatless recipes for stuff like mayonnaise for one. One time in high school, I had this history teacher. I'll never forget him. Maybe that's how I ended up here. But every day we would come into class, and I'm not kidding you, he would be at his desk with a jar of mayonnaise and a spoon, and he would just be eating it.

He never talked about it. We never asked questions. We were kids. But like the classroom you would walk in and just get this whiff of mayonnaise. And like to this day, if I smell mayonnaise, it's just like, it was so gross. He was, he, I would like to know where he is now. I probably imprisoned because he talked about sex and what kind of porn he watched a lot. So I'm thinking, because if he was eating mayonnaise, obviously that made him so horny

because he watched a lot of porn and he would tell us about it. So I don't know if mayonnaise actually is that safe. When it comes to booking doctor's appointment, You know, it's a lot of our problems. We're not very good at it. When do you really even want to? It's like, oh, I need to go to the dentist, but I don't want to go to the dentist, you know, saying?

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So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to Zocdoc.com slash dark history to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. That's Zoc-D-O-C dot com slash dark history. Zoc-D-com slash dark history. Now, in the early days of the sand, they kept things, you know, small and cozy. They would only take, like, a hundred or so patients at a time. But within 10 years, the Battle Creek Sanitarium had thousands of patients a year. Yeah, Battle Creek was like the Coachella of Health Resorts, and people were lining up around the block.

They wanted to go here. It wasn't just normal people. Like, we couldn't go there. It was elite clients, like presidents, inventors. like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, icons like Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia freaking Earhart went. Yeah.

Now, I guess Amelia even took Kellogg up in her airplane for his very first flight. When history, like mixes like this, my mind is always like, what? The sand was seen as this, like, advanced boutique. place that was catering to each guest's specific needs. Like upon arrival, each guest went through this intense medical wellness checkup. And they tested you for everything.

They would test your skin, your heart, your blood, your gut bacteria, your kidneys, your strength, your urine, your poop. You know, I guess they were checking your poop to make sure there's no like parasites or checking to see if like food wasn't completely being digested. Poop. Yeah. They would even test your psychological state. Mm-hmm.

So when you got there as like a client, there was a sense that you were getting this custom wellness treatment, making sure like, am I good, am I healthy, am I okay? You know, that was kind of nice. But actually, the goal here at the sand was to secretly cure everyone of sexual urges. But it was mad. as like a luxury wellness retreat. Now Kellogg wasn't performing intense

like a genital mutilating surgeries on everyone who came to stay at the sand, you know. There were normal treatments offered at the sand like massages, there was swimming, gymnastics, and fads like hydrotherapy. Hydrotherapy sounds fancy, but really it was a bougie way of saying cold water, you know, can cure it.

anything. Again, including horniness. I mean, we still kind of do this today, you know, like cold plunges and all that. It's that. Ice cold bass, freezing showers, or you would pay to get wrapped up like a human burrito in icy wet blankets. I guess Kellogg loved ice cold water. In his book, he wrote that if you were battling with like any sexual urges, you could fight them off with cold water. Whether or not the guests at the sand knew it, they were basically, you know, the lab rats in his master experiment to like stop people from having sex. What's funny is that, you know, he, this man, Mr. Kellogg, he was so anti-sex, but he was obsessed with putting stuff up his butt. You know, he was. Like a huge part of his hydrotherapy treatments were enemas.

Now if you don't know what an enema is, first of all, you should do it. It's great. I tried one not long ago, and I felt brand new afterwards, okay? But basically, listen, shut up, just try it at least once in your life. But an enema is when, like, fluid is shut up your butt. Yeah. So you can clear, you can clear up whatever, like, backup you have. Like if you're constipated, if you need to just kind of be clean. Now, it's great. Seriously, afterwards, you're like, I'm a brand new person because all that shit's out of you, literally. Enema parties at my house. Anyway, so Dr. Kellogg was obsessed with digestion, and I guess this all started with a trip to the zoo. I know, just go with me, okay? He goes to the zoo. He used to, like, visit the zoo a lot, I guess. It was his thing, his hobby, and he really liked to go see the gorillas. He loved a gorilla. One day he noticed something the gorillas did

that humans did not do. Gorillas pooped like five times a day. So I guess, you know, one day he saw these gorillas squatted down to take their fifth dump of the day, and he thought to himself like, you know, that right there, that is holiness. And he wanted that digestive health that the gorillas had. I want to poop like that.

I want to poop five times a day. I love poop. Poop is life. So at the sanitarium, it made sense that Kellogg was obsessive about what people ate and how often it came out. So, you know, when you got to the sanitarium, it was kind of like you were at a, you know, a bougier, a high-end fat camp.

Everything you ate was weighed and portioned with, quote, pharmacist level precision. Kellogg had this theory called auto intoxication, meaning your body literally poisoned itself when bad bacteria took over your gut. And he believed this bad bacteria came from eating meat, so all the food at the sand was completely vegetarian. But you know, you couldn't enjoy the food, so like none of it was seasoned. Seasoning food and making it taste good would, quote, excite the passions, end quote. A big part of the Sand diet was dairy made from pure milk. Now this milk came from the creamery that was on site.

Of course it was. Now Kellogg believed that dairy was essential to having a healthy gut. So milk was turned into yogurt, butter, cottage cheese, all kinds of stuff for the guests to eat. Yogurt was very important to Kellogg's diet. He said it could treat serious issues like chronic constipation, colitis, gastro, and territus. liver problems, anemia, goiters. What the hell is goiters? Do you guys play animal crossings? Aren't those little creatures called goiters?

No, are they? I'm really into animal crossing again. Okay, the list goes on. He's saying it can cure all this stuff, okay? But Dr. Kellogg didn't just suggest eating yogurt. No, no, no, no, no. Ideally, you would eat it, but also, But also, you would get yourself a yogurt enema.

Creamy and thick right up the butt and then just oozes out. Sounds like a cream pie. Isn't that called a cream pie? Yeah. What I do want to know, were the yogurt enema's a good thing? I will try and get back to you. I'm just kidding. But I am really curious.

You probably can't use like a flavor. yogurt though, because at home I have like, you know, the vanilla yogurt. I probably shouldn't put that at my butt. Stay tuned. So this is a real thing. Yeah, you up the butt, you'd shoot up some yogurt up the butt. Kellogg also recommended his constipated patients that they should perform manual colon massages to keep everything moving. Between the douching and the prostate like rumb downs, there are some clues here as to like why he, He didn't want to maybe sleep with his wife. Maybe.

Yeah, it's a unique thought. I wonder, okay, yeah, I don't know. I've got so many questions. I wish he were here. I would love to ask some questions. John was obsessed with policing everyone's appetites and their butts. But there was one area in his life he just could not control his own family drama. Anytime I have to mail out a bunch of packages, I feel like it's a chaotic mess.

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Start your 60-day free trial at shipstation.com slash dark history. That's shipstation.com slash dark history. As much as John wanted to act like he was like Mr. Perfect with his, you know, sexless marriage. And, you know, look, I have this successful sanitarium. There was like some serious tension happening behind the scenes. Specifically between John Kellogg, his brother Will Kellogg, and of course John's wife, Ella. So let's rewind a bit. Back when John was finishing medical school,

he was annoyed by like how long it took to make a healthy breakfast from scratch every morning. You know, at the time, most Americans were loading up on fatty foods like bacon and sausages, and this just, like, pissed John off. He believed all this red meat was indulgent, unhealthy, and worst of all, sexually stimulating. Have you looked at a sausage?

What does it look like? A sad, oh well, it kind of looks like a small weaner. Whatever. But it gives you ideas. The sausage? It sure does. So John decided, like, he was going to create the perfect breakfast food. Now, it had to be something pre-cooked.

Easy to digest and bland as hell to keep people holy. This is when he has a little light bulb moment. Thanks to his friend, Ivan Pavlov. I know, does that sound familiar? I was like, what? Yes, it's the same Pavlov who was teaching dogs to drool on command, which came to be the Pavlovian response. Fun fact, Pavlov was also obsessed with digestion.

Yeah, so they had like a lot in common, and they wrote letters to each other, they were friends. He was like, I made a dog drool today. He was crazy. Oh, my God. and then Kellogg would be like, oh my god, I didn't touch myself, it was so wild. We're friends. Now Kellogg was inspired by Pavlov's digestion theories to start experimenting with grains.

So he mixed flour, oats, and cornmeal, and then he would bake this concoction twice, which made for an incredibly bland, rock-hard biscuit. It's kind of like a biscotti. If biscotti had zero sugar and tasted terrible. Same thing. Now, these biscuits, they were so hard that one patient, I guess, like, broke their tooth trying to eat one. So he was like, okay, let's try it again.

So John's in the kitchen. He's kind of struggling. I guess his wife, Ella, she comes in. She's a cook. And she's like, hey, you know, why don't you just roll this dough out super thin with like a rolling pin, you know, instead of like messing up my kitchen. So John takes her advice. rolls it out, these thin sheets of dough, okay?

And he turns it into these crispy toasts that he breaks apart into little pieces. He takes a nibble of one of the shards and thinks, hey, this tastes like shit. I think we're onto something here. Now at this point, things get sticky, cloudy, confusing. Not just because of John's weird dough. There are a few different versions of events.

because everyone wanted to take credit for what happened next. So John had a younger brother, his name was Will. Now Will helped him run the sanitarium. Now John and Will, we're brothers and they work together, but their relationship had always been tense. Now Will, he was kind of like, you know, the black sheep of the family. I guess his whole life, his family called him dim-witted growing up. Yeah, and they bullied him for being done.

Sadly, it turns out, Will wasn't dumb. He just needed glasses. Yeah, yeah, poor guy. Will, he was actually very smart. He went to, like, business school. But, like, none of that matter to John. So he refused to, like, ever treat his brother like an equal. I think part of this was because Will wasn't as religious as John.

And, of course, you know, John did not like that. Will, he stopped going to church in his 20s, which again, it was borderline sinful to John, you know? And when Will came on to work as the business manager at the sand, John just like shot down all of Will's ideas and honestly was just a big asshole to him. John would like make Will take meetings with him while he was on the toilet. You know, like he'd be taking one of his four poops of the day and would be like, come on, we're going to be like, come on, we're going to. having a meeting, just sit there and have a meeting. It was like, okay. But anyways, there was just one Friday night.

Will is helping John out with this annoying biscuit recipe. Okay, so they're working in the kitchen for hours and both of them are just kind of like over it, right? So they call it quits for the night. So Will, he's always looking for ways to like save money. So he decides to not toss out the leftover dough. Instead, he puts it into a container, he sets it aside, and then he goes to bed. Then Saturday rolls around. But because the Kellogg's are Adventist, Saturday is a day of rest.

So zero work is allowed until after sunset. So this dough is just kind of sitting in the container all day, sitting there and just getting moldy. When night finally comes, John and Will, they get back to the kitchen to keep working. So they take that moldy dough, they run it through the rollers, they put it on the baking tray, and something magic happens. Now, according to Will, the dough came out as like these perfectly thin, flaky sheets, with every wheatberry becoming its very own flake. I guess, surprise, surprise, turns out, the mold was the secret all along.

Now, we'll call this accidental discovery tempering. Basically, as the mold grew, it evenly distributed moisture throughout the dough, eliminating air bubbles and making the flakes perfectly crispy. Now, after a lot of trial and air, making sure it was just moldy enough but not toxic, we'll figure out the perfect balance of baking conditions, dough size, and timing. And the Kellogg's start to crank out tons of these little toasted pieces. and they called it granola. Pretty soon granola was a breakfast staple at the sanitarium.

People love splashing a little milk or yogurt on the granola, and it was like their signature dish. And I guess at this moment, Will has like a major light bulb moment. He was like, hey, what if we started packaging this granola in little boxes and we like sold it to guests who were like checking out of the sanitarium? you know, so they could take it home and eat it. Huh? This was a great idea.

So they started doing it and it was a huge hit. The brothers, they started selling the cereal at the sand and by mail order for 15 cents for a 10 ounce package. I guess it was like very popular because like pretty soon they couldn't even keep up with the demands. Even with Will working insane like 120 hour weeks, people wanted this great. granola. So he hired some bakers and workmen and expanded into a mini factory. And in the first year of

selling granola, they sold over 113,000 pounds of it. So obviously, John, he realizes, like, there's a huge opportunity here. So he sneakily applies for a patent for the granola. And when he's like filling out the paperwork, he leaves his brother's name off of it. Shady. So they're doing this, right? They're selling the granola and all that. And, you know, people are paying attention.

They're realizing that the Kellogg business model, you know, was working. Like, these guys were able to take 60 cents worth of wheat and turn it into $12. I mean, that was a huge profit. So people are paying attention. They're like, we should be doing that shit. So pretty soon competitors started popping up, I mean, even though there was a patent, you know, that John had applied for. It's clear that this thing is like a real moneymaker. John Kellogg and his wife Ella, they start taking full credit for inventing granola.

Yeah, John Kellogg starts telling people like, oh yeah, that flaky cereal idea, yeah, it came from a dream I had. Yeah, I went to the kitchen and I was like, mm-hmm, and I made it. It's crazy. And then my wife, my wife, yeah, she can tell you that's exactly what happened. She was there. Now Ella was backing up his story because apparently she really didn't like Will either. So together, she and John, they ganged up on Will and claimed that they had made the granola completely on their own. Now at this point, Will, imagine your will.

How are you going to act? You're going to be like, fuck you. You know, he's pissed. He is pissed. was fed up with his selfish, poop-obsessed brother who likes cream pies. Now Will, he saw a future in that granola cereal, one that his brother couldn't even think of

in his little pea brain. Now Will, he knew that adding something like sugar would extend the shelf life of the cereal, you know, since it's a preservative. Plus he knew Will was like it'd be actually, it would taste better, okay? and it would probably be way more popular. So he decided to buy the rights to the recipe from his brother.

Now it wasn't easy. It was a very intense negotiation. There was a lot of sibling drama, but I guess John finally agreed to sell the business to Will for $170,000, which in today's money would be millions. So in 1906, Will started his own cereal company called Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company company. Yeah, it doesn't really like roll off the tongue, but you know, it is what it is.

And unlike his brother, Will did not give a crap about like the holiness of this food. He wanted to make something delicious and profitable. So he took that recipe and he added malt, sugar, and salt. And this totally transformed the moldy resort cereal into a feast for the taste now will he decides to call this new recipe corn flakes and he threw a ton of money into marketing yes so at the time porridge was super popular and you know with porridge you could use milk in it so he knew like he could corner the market on uh corn flakes and milk so it's it's not porridge but it's like kind of the same you know corn flakes and milk though it was like a cold and more refreshing alternative. In the beginning, Will had a pretty rocky start. His factory was like basically falling apart, but, you know, Will just kept on keeping on.

He shipped almost 179,000 cases by the end of his first year. And then soon after, he renamed his company the Kellogg's Toasted Cornflake Company. Yeah. And that's when his older brother, John, decided to stir the pot even more. So John, you know, he's still doing his holy flakes, whatever. He changed his own company's name to the Kellogg's Food Company of Battle Creek. Obviously, Will was

furious, okay? Not only is as petty, but it's very confusing now to the consumer. He accused John of deliberately, like, confusing customers and cashing in on his success. John fired back, basically saying, uh, no, you're the one who's writing my coattails. It was drama. The boys were fighting. The two battled it out in court for over a decade. And the Kellogg v. Kellogg case even worked its way up to the Michigan Supreme Court in 1920. And guess what?

Will won big. The court ruled that he alone had the rights to the Kellogg name on cereals. John had to pay up all the profits he earned using the Kellogg brand, and he had to pay for Will's hefty legal fees. Yes. It's nice one like the underdog wins for once, you know? It's rare you hear that in the dark history episodes. So yay for Will.

And on top of that, Will was like, Will was classy. He told John that he'd settle for just the legal fees. But John had an ego and he refused to accept any charity. Apparently when he handed it over like a big check to his brother, he said it was so Will had, quote, no excuse for pestering me further, end quote. From that point on, Will and John, they like barely ever spoke again. On September 8th, 1941, John, who was like 81 at this point, I guess he, like, sat down and he wrote a heartfelt letter to his brother, Will. He probably, you know, he's older now, he probably just came to his son, says, and in this letter, he genuinely apologized for all their fights, and he praised Will for all of his accomplishments.

It was seen as, like, an olive branch. But unfortunately, this letter was never sent. I guess John's assistant thought that the letter was beneath him and she just like stuffed it into a filing cabinet and it stayed there for years. Yeah. And then John died. And Will had no idea about this letter. So when John died, Will didn't go to his funeral and it wasn't until 1948 that the letter was finally given to Will. By the time Will actually got the letter, he was like practically on his deathbed.

And he was blind, so he couldn't read it. I guess, like, a nurse read it to him. She could have been making shit up, though. It could have been a letter like, fuck you, motherfucker. And she's like, he loves you very much. He wishes you the best. He can read it. But I guess a nurse read it to him.

His reaction wasn't recorded. But hopefully it gave him some peace and closure and all that good stuff that you'd hope for. before you die, you know? Kind of an emotional roller coaster of regret and lost chances. Kind of sad. Now the silver lining is that cereal completely changed breakfast in America for everyone. Rich and poor.

Cornflakes are quick, they're easy, and they're inexpensive. And honestly, it happened just in time, because once the Great Depression hit America, food was, like, very limited. Was it the cereal that John Kellogg was trying to save the world with? Definitely not. The sugar changed everything. But whether he liked it or not, his name was tied to the sugary version.

I mean, it's kind of crazy if you think about it. Without all this, we wouldn't have corn flakes, fruit loops, applejacks, rice Krispies, or Frosted Mini-Weets. We wouldn't have any of this if one, guy hadn't hated sex so much that he tried to build a cult against it. Very odd, huh? When you think of it like that? Yeah. Weird worlds we live in. Now for my dark history listeners, this episode, today's story might sound a little familiar. If you watch the episode, the dark history episode about graham crackers, this, today's episode, very similar. Now, who came

First, the Graham Cracker guy, and it's believed that the Kellogg's guy was inspired by the gramcracker guy, because they had a lot of the same beliefs that if you ate bland food and all that stuff, you wouldn't want to have sex. Masturbation was bad, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So just want to point that out. Really interesting at this time, there was some kind of movement about not touching yourself and eating bland food. And with that actually came some delicious treats because we got the graham cracker who doesn't love the s'more and we got cereal so moral of the story is i don't know actually what it the moral of the story is i don't know i just want to point that out for the real ones out there who are who are like this sounds familiar

it's the graham cracker episode you should watch it that was also a wild weird bizarre story because graham crackers without punk all right thank you guys so much Did you think that was wild? I thought that was wild. Well, just wait, because next time, we're talking about a different kind of health nut. One who famously quit smoking his pipe by replacing it with jelly beans.

He ignored a pandemic and brought Hollywood-level drama straight to the White House. His wife was notorious for giving grade A blow jobs and allegedly he had a tiny weiner. Join us next time when we will be diving into the one, the only Ronald Reagan. Now I'd love to hear you guys' reactions to today's story, so make sure to leave a comment below so I can see what you guys are saying, and your comment might even be featured in a future

episode. What's your favorite cereal? Let me know. Now, let's read a couple of comments that you guys have left me. Beth Stein left us a comment on our Vegas episode over on Spotify, saying, quote, Not sure if you read Elvira's book, but she started out as a Vegas showgirl, end quote. I did read Elvira's book, and yes, I know she was a showgirl, and I love that. I love a showgirl, though.

The feathers, the glam, the glitz, the everything. It's so beautiful. Oh, what a time. Thank you for sharing that little fun fact, Beth. And yeah, if you haven't read Alvirus book, great. Great story. Love her. Love.

Michelle from LA commented on our bodybuilding episode on YouTube saying, quote, Paul and Rob are looking fabulous, ready to pump you up, end quote. Listen, Paul and Rob, they looked great, but I think they were skipping a leg day, you know? I mean, you can't be pumping it up at a gym and then like skip a leg day. But I won't lie, when we were done, I was like, you guys, can you pick me up? You know? I don't know. I don't think they can help it, though.

They are skeletons, so. But they looked great. I'm glad you noticed, and I'm sure they will love to hear that compliment. They work hard here over at Dark History. Abyss 7936 left us an episode suggestion over on YouTube saying, Bailey, Bailey, please do Marilyn Monroe. People tell her story wrong all the time. As a certified Marilyn Monroe historian, I would love to hear you tell her story, end quote.

Wait, you're a certified Marilyn Monroe historian? First of all, let's connect. Tell me. Because listen, I've thought about it. But I'm not going to lie. I feel like Marilyn, her story has been told so many times, and I have this internal fight with myself where I'm like, let the poor woman just be.

You know, like how many times are we going to try and freaking dissect her story? Like, just let her rest in peace. And then there are other times where I'm like, yeah, I mean, she had such a wild, interesting life. I would, I want to talk about it, but I don't know. So I've always struggled with that personally. But if you're a freaking Marilyn Monroe historian, let's link up, give me all the details so I can get the real story. Because there's also a lot of like Marilyn Monroe fluff. And just like you said, there's a lot of like misinformation about her.

and there's just so much with her. But, um, I don't know. I guess I'd have to ask my audience, would you want to see a Marilyn Monroe episode? Let me know down below. But I love the suggestion, and I've thought about it a lot. I really have.

And, um, send me an email. Let's connect. That's probably just some lady in her garage who's like, I'm a Marilyn Monroe historian. Like, yeah. There's this lady on TikTok who says that she's, uh, Marilyn Monroe reincarnated. Have you seen her?

Hello. This is Marilyn Monroe reincarnated. I feel I have to say that every time. Do I? Okay, not to be rude. But just because you have blonde hair and you put on a red lipstick doesn't mean you're Rural Reneur R reincarnated. And she, like, talks like Marilyn Monroe.

She's, oh, oh, I'm Marilyn Monroe. I don't know what she's doing. I don't know what that lady's doing. I watch. Anywho, thank you guys so much for watching and hanging out with me and engaging. Keep on commenting because maybe I will, you know, address your comment. Yeah. Hey, did you know you can join me over on my YouTube where you can actually watch these episodes? Yeah, on Thursday after the podcast airs. And while you're there, you can also catch my murder, mystery, and makeup. So don't forget to subscribe. And hey, if you don't know, Dark History is an

audio boom original. I want to give a special thank you to our expert, Heather Arndt Anderson, author of Breakfast, A History. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. I hope you have a good day today. You make good choices, eat a bowl of cereal, and think about masturbation or something. I don't know. I'll be talking to you guys later. Goodbye. I'm...