Something You Should Know - How to Speak Well When You Are Put On The Spot & The Strange History of Breakfast Cereal

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

If you went to your backyard and took a pinch of dirt in your fingers, you would be holding a piece of a shocking underground world you never knew about. Listen as I explain what lives in that world. Source: David W. Wolfe author of Tales From The Underground” (https://amzn.to/3tvUBIk) Whether you are talking to people in a small group or at a large formal event, it can be intimidating and sometimes scary. However, with some simple techniques, you can make speaking less stressful and make your message more impactful, according to Matt Abrahams. Matt is a leading expert in communication and is a lecturer in Organizational Behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He is author of the book Think Faster: Talk Smarter (https://amzn.to/3Q6zMev). Listen to his simple advice and you will instantly improve your speaking ability and your confidence.  When you think of breakfast cereal you probably think of the stuff that comes in a box in the supermarket. Actually breakfast cereal has been eaten for centuries. But boxed breakfast cereal from Kellogg’s and Post and General Mills, that started in the late 1800s with corn flakes being the first cold, boxed cereal. The story of cereal is fascinating and filled with interesting events and quirky characters. Here to tell that story is Kathryn Cornell Dolan. She is an associate professor of English at the Missouri University of Science and Technology and author of the book, Breakfast Cereal: A Global History (https://amzn.to/3ZKV0Tz). It's weird to think, but just in the last few decades human feet have been getting bigger – both men and women’s feet. Why? Listen as I explain the prevailing theory of bigger feet. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1239975/Female-feet-getting-larger-size-10s-demand.html PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Go to https://HelloFresh.com/50something and use code 50something for 50% off plus free shipping! Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at https://shopify.com/sysk today! BetterHelp is truly the best way to make your brain your friend. Give it a try. Visit https://BetterHelp.com/Something today to get 10% off your first month! Bring smiles to all when shopping online with Dell Technologies’ Gift Guide. Whether it’s for the artist, entrepreneur, student, streamer or gamer, you will find the perfect gift for everyone on your list! https://Dell.com/GiftGuide Let’s find “us” again by putting our phones down for five.  Five days, five hours, even five minutes. Join U.S. Cellular in the Phones Down For Five challenge! Find out more at https://USCellular.com/findus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, what's crawling around in the dirt in your backyard? Then a lot of great advice for the next time you have to speak to a large group or a small party or anywhere. Think to yourself right before you speak, I have value to bring. These folks are going to benefit because, and whatever you say after that because, and then see how you feel.

Most people feel better. Most people approach their audience rather than retreat. Also, why human feet are getting noticeably bigger quickly. And the interesting people and fascinating stories in the history of breakfast cereal. In COVID, there was a run on grape nuts. And that created a robust black market for grape nuts. And people went onto sites to buy black market grape nuts. And some people paid up to $100 for a box of grape nuts. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts experts and practical advice you can use in your life today something you should know with mike carothers hi there and welcome to

something you should know so imagine this imagine if you were to go into your backyard and pick up just a pinch of dirt, like a half a teaspoon. If you did that, you would be holding over a billion living organisms, perhaps 10,000 different species of life in that little pinch of dirt. Now this is about twice as many organisms as scientists thought just 20, 30 years ago. In fact, it's now believed that more than half of all Earth life is going on underground. And not all life underground is friendly. Tetanus, for example. Tetanus spores are in soil everywhere, even in your backyard. Luckily, most of us have been vaccinated against it, so tetanus is not a big problem here.

But in developing countries, it is still a big health issue and people get it from contact with dirt. And that is something you should know. Have you ever been in a situation where all eyes are on you? Everyone is waiting for you to say something. Maybe it's in a small group at a party or an event, or even in a more formal environment where you're called upon to speak in front of a group. For a lot of us, it can be terrifying, even paralyzing, which can be doubly horrifying because not only are all eyes on you waiting

for you to say something brilliant, but the situation itself tends to tie up your brain and your tongue into knots, making it harder to think and speak. Well, here to help understand why that happens and how to prevent it and really how to make speaking to people a whole lot easier, is Matt Abrahams. Matt is a leading expert in communication with decades of experience as an educator, author, and coach. He is a lecturer in organizational behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and author of the book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter. Hi, Matt. Welcome. Thanks for coming on Something You Should Know.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat with you. Everyone has heard and experienced to some degree, I imagine, how scary speaking in public is. But I guess the question is, why is it so scary? What are people afraid of? Well, it is. It's part of the human condition. When we look at surveys of people and they report anxiety around speaking, 85% of people report getting nervous in high-stakes situations. And quite frankly, I think the other 15% are lying. I think we could create a circumstance that would make them nervous. Like I said, it's part of the human condition. We want to appear

confident and competent in front of people. We see anxiety of speaking in front of others in every culture that we study. And we see it start to develop around the early teen years when people are expected to be part of the broader society. So it's something we have to deal with. Well, it certainly is audience dependent. I can talk to my kids and not get too worked up about it, but talking to strangers in a formal setting and, and supposedly imparting some knowledge, that's scary. Absolutely. Absolutely. And in those circumstances that you described, the context does matter in the context where we are more in jeopardy with our status, we get more nervous.

You know, with your kids, you're pretty well established in your status. But when you're in a work function and your big boss is in the room, that's a very different circumstance. So context does matter. And helping appreciate that and understanding that can be one of the steps to managing the anxiety. So what is the, maybe jumping to the end here, but what is like the first aid approach? If you're going to speak, even if it's just in a group at a party or something, but you're kind of on the spot and you're going to speak, is there anything that the first aid like that you can do that calms down the situation and makes your brain not do that thing where you can't think straight?

I'll give you three things I think that can really help sort of the panic button response that can help one deep belly breaths the kind of thing if you've ever done yoga or tai chi where you you really fill your lower abdomen make sure the exhale is twice as long as the inhale the the exhale is where all the magic happens you do a few breaths like that one or two and you begin to feel better and you can do that before you jump into a virtual meeting before you click the join, before you open the door to the room, you can do that. Second, remind yourself you are in service of the people you're talking to. It's not about you, it's about them. And if we can shine that spotlight away from us and onto them, it can be very liberating and much more engaging. And then finally, anything we can do to get ourselves present-oriented in that moment.

So approach it with curiosity or excitement, and that can bring us into that present moment. A lot of our anxiety is either ruminating about things we could have, would have, should have done, or the future consequences of what could happen if I make a mistake. So by being present-oriented, by being focused on the value you bring to the interaction, and then taking deep breaths, you can actually turn the volume down quite significantly on the anxiety you feel in those moments. It's interesting that when you're in that position, you fear you're being judged by everyone watching you. When the roles are reversed, when you're in the audience watching someone else, you typically aren't as critical as you think other people are when you're speaking. They're often very forgiving. They want you to succeed. They're rooting for you. But when you're up there, you think everybody thinks I suck. i suck that's right in fact psychologists have a name for this they call it the spotlight effect we we over emphasize our view of how others are seeing us rather than just focus on what we're

doing and the reality is everybody's carrying around a little spotlight that's shining on themselves and we're all in our own head worried about what others think of us that we just don't have the bandwidth or time to think about other people. So you're right. It is ironic. And again, helping people to understand that can bring relief in terms of how anxious people feel. You talk about or you suggest to people to dare to be it's your turn to say something, you generally want to sound smart and clever, maybe even witty, knowledgeable, knowing what you're talking about. So dare to be dull doesn't sound like great advice. So can you explain that? Yes. Maximize mediocrity.

That's how I start my classes I teach at Stanford's business school. It's a real simple phenomenon. A lot of us strive to be right when we speak. We want to do it right. And unlike sports or acting or singing, where there is a right way and a wrong way, there is no right way to communicate. There's certainly better ways and worse ways,

but putting pressure on ourselves to do it right almost guarantees that we're not going to do it as well as we can. And it boils down to thinking of your brain like a computer. It's not a perfect analogy, but in this case, it works. If you on your laptop or on your phone have lots of apps or windows open, your central processing unit in there is not working as efficiently as it can it's it's stretched the bandwidth is limited so every one of those apps or windows is performing a little less well because they're all open if i am constantly judging and evaluating what i want to say my cognitive bandwidth is reduced because part of my brain is actually focusing on judging what I'm saying as I'm saying it. Dare to be dull. Maximize mediocrity is all about saying, turn the volume down on that self-evaluation and judgment. Don't get rid of it.

We have to think about what we say, otherwise we can get in big trouble. But don't do it as much or as intensely as we do. So when I say to my students, dare to be dull or maximize mediocrity, I'm explaining to them, and they understand it after we do some discussion and activities, that they are getting in their own way. Their pursuit of the perfect way of speaking and presenting is actually reducing the likelihood that they'll do well. And when they give themselves permission just to get it done, just be dull, just be mediocre, They then have all this extra cognitive bandwidth to actually do it very well. So I end that very first class. I start by saying maximize mediocrity. And at the end of the class, I finish the quote and I say maximize mediocrity so you can achieve greatness. And the students understand it. It's about turning down that striving for perfection.

So can you give me an example of that? Because it's hard to imagine standing up in front of people and saying, you know, I'm going to dare to be dull here. I wouldn't know, like, so what would I say differently? So when somebody asks, let's take a very specific example. I'll give you two. Let's say somebody asks you a question. And instead of saying, oh, I got to get the right answer here, answer the question. Give just the first answer that pops into your mind, give the answer. And in so doing, chances are you'll be able to say that answer more eloquently than if you got in your head and say, oh, I could say it this way, I could say it that way. Is this the right way to say it? So just giving yourself permission to say it helps you say it better.

Something that I've noticed, I'd like to get you to comment on this. I interview a lot of people. And so very often what happens, it seems to me, what I think is happening is I'll talk to people before the interview and it's all very easy and nice and conversational. As soon as the interview starts, a lot of people, it almost seems like they think someone is fact-checking every word they say. They become very cautious, whereas a minute ago they were having fun and just speaking to speak. Something happens, I think, when you're in front of people you don't know, where you think like they know more than you do or they're fact checking you or they something happens that puts this filter on that makes things difficult we see these types of communication as threatening and challenging we see them

as we are being tested this is a crucible where we can demonstrate our communication prowess. And that changes our demeanor. It changes how we sound, what we do with our body, the length of our answers, the depth of our content. If rather we reframe these circumstances as opportunities of an ability to collaborate, to extend, to expand, to get to know things things better that changes our demeanor I open up I sound more conversational like myself I give more depth to my answers richness to my thoughts so reframing these situations and how do you do that it's one thing to say it's another thing to do it part of the way you do that is remind yourself of successful communication interactions you've had in the past. The ones that

were successful, chances are, are not the ones that you found threatening and challenging. They're the ones where you felt invited, connected, and collaborative. So part of it is reminding yourself that, hey, when I get in that space, good things happen. And then the other thing to do is watch others who are the way you would like to be and notice what they do to make them feel more collaborative and less challenging. So by reflecting on your own, seeing it in other people, that helps you take that step to begin to adopt that mindset yourself. And when you do, you'll avoid the things that you're noticing that you see in others. I'm speaking with Matt Abrahams, and we're talking about how to be a better speaker. He is a leading expert in communications,

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ago the other thing is uh those who help bring out the best in us i think do a few things one they listen well so we feel like we're being listened to and we feel validated. They might even ask follow-up questions or paraphrase what we're saying to make us feel like they really care. They're doing things with their nonverbal presence. If we see them either virtually or in person, they're probably in an open body posture. They're probably nodding as we speak, looking at us. If we only hear their voice, they're probably doing what we call back channel things like, uh-huh, and really. So I think they do things that make us feel better, which empowers us to communicate better. And we also are less intimidated by them. So I would challenge you and everybody

listening to think about the people who really help us communicate better. And what are the things that they're doing? How are they inviting us, either explicitly or implicitly, to be better at our communication? So you've given the advice, and pretty much anybody who talks on this topic says, you know, preparation is important. I think, though, that people don't know what that means. So does that mean memorize what I'm going to say? Does that mean, not it, what does it mean to be prepared to talk in terms of going either? If it's a plan presentation, then prepared to talk means you've thought through your content. And by thinking through your content, I mean, you've reflected on who your audience is.

You think about their knowledge level, their areas of resistance, their likely attitudes. You think about your goal. What is it I want them to know? How do I want them to feel? And what do I want them to do as a result of my communication? And then you think about how do I package up this information in a clear, concise way that engages the audience? That's preparation. And then you can actually practice delivering some of it. At no point are you memorizing. Memorizing gets you in so much

trouble because it feeds right back into that cognitive load issue. If I have the right way to say it and I'm speaking, I am constantly comparing myself to what I intended to say, which means I have less energy and focus on what I'm actually saying and connecting with my audience. Now, when you're speaking spontaneously, preparation looks a little different. So obviously you might not know who your audience is. Sometimes you do. And if you do, you should reflect on characteristics of them but if you don't in the moment you need to be observing the environment preparation might mean wow i notice everybody looks really tired and i could think well maybe this is their fifth meeting in a row that might change how i say something you do have to think about your goal immediately just in the moment how do what do i to get across? How do I want people to feel?

What do I want them to do? And then the second half of the methodology I talked about, the six steps, is really about messaging. And that's where structure and prioritization come in. So you can do a lot to prepare. If you're going on a job interview or you're giving a presentation

and you know Q&A is coming, you should think about questions that you might get. In fact, you could use generative AI, chat GPT and the like. Type in interviewing for a job at this company in this role. Give me five questions. The tool will spit out questions, and you can practice answering them. That's what I mean by preparation. There is a moment right before you speak that I think many people feel very intimidated

and kind of shrink and, and lose their energy. And, and, and what do you do in that moment? So by reminding ourselves that this adds value and reminding ourselves in the moment that these people have something to get from us, that can really change that intimidation and make it exciting and invite you to engage. Think to yourself right before you speak, I have value to bring. These folks are going to benefit because, and whatever you say after that, because, and then see how you feel. Most people feel better.

Most people approach their audience rather than retreat. And most people put energy into their voices when they have that approach in mind. So since you're the expert in this, people must ask you questions. What do you get asked about a lot? One is the biggest thing I get asked about is what do I do if I forget, if I blank out? It's the number one thing people struggle with and are worried about. And I give them two ways to approach this, one before and one after. So before you speak, if you're really nervous about blanking out, first, ask yourself this question, what is the real likelihood that I will blank out in this upcoming situation? If you're like most people, most people never go beyond 20, 25%. They say 25% chance I'll blank out, which means 75% of the time you're not. And those are good odds. If I were a betting person, I would take

those odds. Second, you can structure content, put your content in a structure. I'll give you an example, problem, solution, benefit. If you've ever sold anything or watched an advertisement on television, they use this structure. Here's a problem. Here's how we solve it. Here's the benefit. If I know that structure, it's really hard to forget or get lost. So if I finish the problem and I'm like, what comes next? I always know solution follows problem. So by rationalizing, asking yourself the likelihood something will happen and using a structure, it reduces the likelihood that you'll blank out. Second, if you do blank out, do what you do if you lose your keys or your phone. Go back to go forward. Repeat yourself. Often we can get ourselves back on track just by saying what we just said. And most of us can remember what we

just said, even if we can't remember what comes next. And then the final thing to do is if that doesn't work and you blanked out and you still can't get back on track, ask your audience a question. And that question will distract them from attention on you, get them engaged with whatever the question is, and it gives you a sense and a time to catch up. When I teach, sometimes I'll blank out. I teach the same class over and over again. I think, did I say this in this class? I should think about that for a second. So I'll just stop and I'll say, let's pause for a moment.

I'd like all of you to think about how what we've just discussed applies to your life or this project. And the students don't think, oh man, he's forgotten. They think, oh, how does this apply? So the biggest thing I get asked about is blanking out. There are things you can do prior to the communication and things you can do if you actually blank out to help you. Is there something, that's number one, is there a close number two that people ask you about? The other thing people ask me about is pretty straightforward. What do I do with my hands? People always want to know what do I do with my hands when they speak? And the answer is do not hide them, not in your pocket, behind your back. Use them to help emphasize your points or describe what you're saying. My rule for gesturing is very simple.

Go beyond your shoulders. Many people gesture in front of their chest and it makes them look nervous, defensive, and tight. And if you gesture broadly beyond your shoulders, and it doesn't have to be full extended like I'm king or queen of the world, it's just going beyond your shoulders helps you look confident. So use them as an aid to help you communicate with your audience. Those are the two big questions I get. What do I do with my hands? What do I do if I blank out? Mostly what we've been talking about is, is really more like about formal speaking, but people also struggle with just making small talk. And I know you talk about that. And what's the magic there? Because some people are so good at it

and some people just dread it so and feel awkward and don't know what to say. So what do you say? So I think small talk gets a bad rap. I think we need to rebrand it. Small talk allows for really big things to happen. It allows you to connect, to learn, to really collaborate with people.

So when we go into small talk situations, a couple rules apply. First, and this comes from a colleague of mine, a fascinating woman. She is a professional matchmaker and an academic, really interesting combination. She has this saying that I think is really powerful for small talk. Your goal is to be interested, not interesting. And that means you have to ask questions. You have to be connected and listen well. That helps you get through most small talk. The second rule is to keep things moving. Many of us go into small talk like we're playing tennis or volleyball where we want to just spike something over the net. I'll say something great and it goes over the net and then I'm done. Instead, it's more like that game hacky sack. Do you remember that game with the beanbag ball?

And the whole goal there is just to keep the ball off the ground and everybody participates kicking it. That's your job in small talk. Set people up to keep the conversation going. If you go in by asking questions, listening, commenting on what people say, adding where appropriate, these conversations then go really, really well. So it's about being interested and not interesting, keeping the conversation moving, being curious and being a good listener. That makes small talk so much easier. Well, that's great advice because I think what people struggle with with small talk is they don't know what to talk about or what to say. And your suggestion is to be more interested than interesting. And it takes the it takes the pressure off. I've been speaking with Matt

Abrahams. He is a communications expert, a lecturer in organizational behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and author of the book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Matt. Thank you so much. It was great to chat with you. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show.

Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.

Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives,

and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft

AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker, John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person

Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Every morning, people all over the world start their day with a bowl of cereal. Breakfast cereal. When you think about it, modern day breakfast cereal is kind of a weird food. I mean, how in the world does corn become a corn flake? I have no idea. Today, there are so many cereals, but where do they all come from?

What is it about cereal that makes it such a popular choice for breakfast? Joining me to reveal much of what you never knew about the world of cereal is Catherine Cornell Dolan. She is an associate professor of English and author of a couple of books. Her latest is called Breakfast Cereal, A Global History. Hi, Catherine. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me. And please call me Casey. Okay, Casey. So I guess I first would like to know, because I have a sense that cereal seems like a very American thing, but I don't know if it is. I mean, do people eat Cheerios and Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies all over the world, or is it pretty much an American thing? Good. That's the excellent question.

And the answer is really, of course, like all these answers are yes and no. Cereal as a first meal that you eat, usually sometime in the morning, is universal and has always existed and goes way back to Mesopotamia times. But the boxed grocery store, corn flakes kind of cereal is absolutely started in America, in Battle Creek, Michigan with these really wacky cast of characters like Kellogg and C.W. Post and a guy named James Caleb Jackson.

So the breadth of Syria that we usually think about is absolutely American. But there's a really interesting history that goes before the kind of American inventions happened. And that history starts when and where? So up to, depending on the historical source you're looking at, eight to 10,000 years ago, if you're talking about the Mesopotamian Fertile Crescent area where they've got those eight founder crops, some of the most important of which for my purposes include barley and two

ancient forms of wheat. And those all get crossbred with an early goat grass and they become bread wheat, which is the wheat we use now and think of as wheat. And that's what people would use to start making porridges, these kinds of porridges, oatmeal, all these kinds of warm breakfast cereals that you might have yourself now. People are just eating those always. So that, you know, as far back as we can chart, people have been eating those. But then in the 19th century, so 1863, that is when someone invents this thing called granola. And that's where the history gets real interesting. Because that's the beginning of the all-American breakfast cereal. So explain how that happened. So James Caleb Jackson in 1863, he went to a health spa in Danville, New York. He'd been sick.

It made him feel a lot better and it basically fixed him entirely. And he was really impressed by the very simple diet. And so then he started his own health spa. And he wanted to do more with that very simple idea of the very simple diet. And so he created this biscuit. So it involved baking, twice baking a very large flour wafer. So like a big cake, but very thin, and then breaking it up into smaller nugget shaped biscuits. And that was the first ready to eat breakfast cereal. So that was 1863. And he did it and he would serve it to the patients at the health spa that he then started. The next step in that whole history came along because John harvey kellogg and ellen white went to this danville spa to get ideas for their health resort which was back in battle creek michigan and that's where things get real familiar sounding to all of us and so in america when whatever kellogg or post or

whoever you know was first when they started cereal what was what was it? Was it Corn Flakes? Was it Cheerios? What was it? Right. And that's, yeah, I got to give you some back history there. So they started with, so it was Kellogg, John Harvey Kellogg. He goes to the Danville Spa. He gets the idea, if you don't mind, I'm going to take you back a step. He gets the idea for this granula and he actually designs his own form of granula that was so similar to the one at Danville Spa, Jackson's version, that there was a fear of litigation and John Harvey Kellogg was being sued all the time actually throughout his life. So this was the first of many threats of litigation for him.

And so he changed the name of granula to granola. And that's actually the first time we hear of granola is the 1890s. And it's fine. It's a better product than the one Jackson had produced. It was more palatable quickly quicker. But he then gets all excited and goes to his test kitchen and experiments with all these different products and recipes and all that. And he comes up with, in 1894, he patents flaked cereals and the process of preparing same, which is what we now know of as cornflakes. So cornflakes is really where it all starts.

That's the very first one. And is there an easy way to explain what a cornflake is? Because I don't think anybody really knows how, when you look at that stuff in the bowl, how did corn become that? You take a biscuit, a small biscuit of wheat, or corn, when it became corn flakes, it became a cornmeal,

and you twice bake it, and you break them up into little flakes, and then you bake it the once, you break it up into the little flakes, and then you bake it the once, you break it up into the little flakes and then you bake it again. And then you have this very thin cornflake, basically. So when breakfast cereal takes off, when does it take off and why does it take off? Sure. It takes off. So John Harvey Kellogg patents this specific kind of flaked version of making a cereal. So what we now picture as cornflakes

in 1894. And basically in that moment, it is world famous. It takes off instantly. Battle Creek, Michigan is on the map. It's got all these fun nicknames like the cereal capital of the world. It's the Mecca of cereal and all the get rich quick people come and they have the next big formula for cereal. There's a man, C.W. Post. So you've all, we've heard of the word Kellogg and we've heard of the word Post. And these are two of the main people that get it started back in the 1890s. C.W. Post is also very unwell and goes to the sanitarium, the Kellogg sanitarium, the

Battle Creek sanitarium that John Harvey and Will Keefe Kellogg work at. And he gets all better. Just like the earlier stories, his health recovers. And so, and it cracks me up. So CW posts the way he decides to thank the Kelloggs. And John Harvey Kellogg is a great self-aggrandizer and quite a character. He's got all kinds of personality, good and bad. And he was very proud of showing off his test kitchen.

And so CW Post goes through and looks at how Kellogg had made everything. And the first thing he does is go across the street and do it himself and just try to undercut the market. And so he goes across the street, starts his own La Vida vida in and then packages a version of the flaked cereal and starts selling that under the brand post and that's when will keith kellogg so john harvey's brother starts yelling at john harvey and says we have to get it in the market we have to start selling this go you know globally we have to get big we can't just do this in a little spa because this guy across the street is taking the market and he shouldn't. We're the ones that invented it. And so that's when the Kellogg company begins,

and that's under Wilkies, not John Harvey. And they add sugar to the cereal. When it was in the spas only, it was far less sweet than what we're used to tasting in breakfast cereals. And it really took off from there. Pretty soon General Mills gets involved, people are inventing shredded wheat, and John Harvey Post goes and tries to sue them because he thinks that he has patented the process of making any kind of cereal. And then the law, the judges come back and tell him that you actually can't patent the process of just making cereal in general. So is shredded wheat, of course, has a slightly different makeup, you know, so that's a slightly different process. So that got patented separately. C.W. Post does eventually invent one of his own that isn't just a theft,

and he patents Grape Nuts. Yeah, well, I always liked, as a kid, I always liked Grape Nuts. But, you know, the question everybody asks is, there's no grapes and there's no nuts so why is it grape nuts exactly made with neither grapes nor nuts he so post thought that the sugar he was using which is slipping my mind at the moment he called it grape sugar I think it's maltose and so he called it grape sugar and then he thought that the twice baking process of the little nuggets made them kind of nutty flavored and so that's where the name grape nuts comes from at some point it i mean it seems that mostly up until some point in time cereal was was really more of an adult thing more than a kid's thing, but it's not today. It seems much more of a kid thing.

It has for decades. So when did that change? Sure. Especially in the post-World War II time, and especially when both parents start going to work out of the house, that's when cereal has this real advantage in the fact that it's not a hot breakfast. And so you don't have to leave kids unsupervised. Kids can take care of themselves. They can provide themselves with breakfast unsupervised. They go to the fridge, they grab the milk, they go to the cabinet, they grab the cereal and they pour it. They take care of everything themselves. They're not lighting fires or turning stoves on or anything to make porridge that could result in chaos and burns and that kind of thing. So it was really popular.

It just went through the roof for children specifically. And then in the 1950s, when they started marketing them in commercials to children, they started putting the little toy surprises in their plastic. We were able to produce much more cheap toys and those kinds of things out of plastic because of new technologies. And that was all on purpose, all marketing it straight for children. The number of cereals in the supermarket is really astounding. And when you think about it, you know, there was a time when there was, you know, Frosted Flakes and Cheerios and whatever, but now there's Honey Nut Cheerios and there's you know five other kinds of cheerios and

it's just it's just like this monster that keeps growing and growing and there's just more and more and there's the monster cereals and there's the this one is really made out of oreos and there's yeah every every kind of gimmick you can possibly think of someone will try it and see if it works and the breakfast cereals is really very american in the sense that it is the innovative, the let's try a gimmick, the next big thing. Like aim at nostalgia, but also aim at innovation. Maybe we'll get them this way. Cross marketing. How can we make advertising work for us?

It's all connected in cereal. When you look at the cereal aisle in the grocery store, you will see the ones that you've always seen. Cornflakes, Wheaties, Cheerios, they're always there and they've always been there. But then there's a lot of these, I don't know, maybe they're like gimmicky cereals or cereals that kind of come and go. And I wonder, why do they go? I mean, why do cereals, some cereals stay and some cereals go? Is it because the taste isn't very good or they're just gimmicky and they just fall out of favor or what? All of the above. And interestingly, not so much the flavor because people will work with recipes to make it so that the flavors,

whatever we have decided we want it in that moment, the cornflake, I mean, the basic ones, cornflakes, grape nuts, shredded wheat, Cheerios. And then if you're in the UK, or the Commonwealth, Weetabix and Weetbix, there's a couple of other ones that are like kind of mainstays. Those will, it seems like those are just never going away. Those ones have ridden every kind of high and low. And interestingly, we just had this, the COVID epidemic and breakfast cereals, especially the traditional breakfast cereals had a boom. And it turns out there was a very similar boom back in the great depression. In times of stress, we go back to those really basic cereals, it turns out. But the kind of flash in the pan ones that you're talking about,

it could be a number of things. It could be a taste combination people weren't really interested in. It could be really bad marketing and business models that they just got knocked out of the market that there was nothing wrong with the product, it just didn't sell and food has a very limited very small profit margin and so if you're not gonna if you're not a good business model you're not gonna survive well let's talk about that because one of the complaints people have about brand name cereal is it is so expensive yeah right right and that you can get knockoff brands at trader joe's or or even now in the supermarket that seem to be pretty close if not almost on the nose that's a lot cheaper so is it just the marketing and the what makes a box of cereal cost you know seven dollars $7? Right, right.

It is. It's largely marketing. And because the product is cents on the dollar, it costs maybe 10 cents to produce. You're using maybe 10 cents of wheat and sugar and all those kinds of things. You know, the industrial scale of this all has made the production of the actual items so cheap that, yeah, there really isn't any other cost associated with it. It does seem that television has a lot to do with the growth of cereal, that TV advertising of cereal aimed at children has had over the last several decades has had a lot to do with the success of cereal. Yes this is because the cereal companies have always been

on the cutting edge of advertising so however they could find a way to advertise their product more than the next guy's product they were finding it and so every technological advance cereal was right there figuring out ways to to market it um If you think about Breakfast of Champions, that slogan goes back more than 100 years to billboards in a, I think it's Minneapolis baseball stadium. And now all of a sudden Wheaties, Breakfast of Champions, we've kept that slogan ever since. So people are just always coming up

with clever ads, sophisticated technological ads. And so if it was newspapers, they'd be ads in journals and newspapers. When it went to radio, then serial companies are sponsoring whole programs that are on the radio. And then it's just transferred straight over to TV. The minute the TV happened, the cereal companies were right there with their various ads, with their mascots, with their cross branding, with the most popular shows. Is Superman going to be advertising a cereal? Is Mickey Mouse going to be advertising a cereal? You know, these things are all happening as soon as TV is coming about. And now with the internet and with social media and all this kind of stuff, these breakfast cereal companies are right there

trying to figure out clever ways to do like something that becomes viral and has clever markets where there was one that happened up in Vancouver and where it was like a really big box of cereal and a Civic came out of it. So the toy surprise in this really huge box of cereal was like a car, but it was like a real car. It was big enough to be a real car. These kinds of ads that they're hoping will get put on

all the various social media channels and everything. So in the timeline of the development of cereals and people eating it for breakfast, can you pick a point or two along the timeline that's a really interesting, quirky, amazing story that I wouldn't know, but people may not have heard of before that you could tell?

Actually, there's a really recent one. You said you liked Grape Nuts, right? And so in COVID, I don't know if you remember this, there was a news report it was vaguely viral not hugely but that there was a run on grape nuts you know you couldn't get toilet paper you couldn't get san soaps and sanitizers and stuff you also couldn't get grape nuts in the store for love or money you you know they just they sold out there was a run on cereal and other breakfast foods just in general but for for some reason, that one, Grape Nuts, was the one people could not get enough of.

And then, of course, people were closing the factories at the time, too, for a few weeks. So there was a reduction in production. And then there was also a run on the desire for it. And that created a robust black market for Grape Nuts. And people went onto sites to buy black market Grape Nuts. And some people paid upward up to $100 for a box of Grape Nuts. And Grape Nuts is not the cereal that you're imagining

is gonna be the one that everyone has to have and is gonna run out and people are willing to spend $100 for, but it was. And then a couple of months later, Post was back to full production and they ramped everything up and they were able to get boxes out on those shelves and everything.

And so people could buy the cereal again and Post marketed the heck out of it. And they posted to their website, here are coupons, thank you so much for loving us. If you can send us a receipt for the fact that you bought something for significantly more than what the shelf price was, we'll refund you that money. That was there was a bit of a news report in and amongst all the other news reports happening in 2020. There was one about grape nuts. Anything else that, you know, kind of a strange and unusual quirky thing about breakfast cereal.

Did you know that Andy Warhol, in addition to his Kellogg's, the Campbell's soup can, he did a Kellogg's cornflakes installation that was really famous in his time. It was 1964. A box, one box of this installation sold at auction for $900,000 in 2015, US dollars. So that was one. There's also festivals all over the world that are based on either box cereal, like the grocery store kind of cereal or porridges. So there's a great one in Scotland

that I would love to visit at some point. That's a porridge based annual festival that's called the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship. So every year people go to Scotland and they make their best recipe of oatmeal and they win a spurtle is this, it's usually wooden, but of course theirs is golden because it's a trophy that you would use to like stir things to mix it around and stuff.

So it's like a kitchen implement. You know, I haven't actually had a bowl of cereal for a while, but I'm kind of craving grape nuts now. I think I'll get a box. Plus, it might be worth $100 one day. I've been talking to Catherine Cornell Dolan. She is a professor of English and author of the book, Breakfast Cereal, A Global History. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for coming on, Catherine.

I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me. I'll bet you didn't know this, but our feet are getting bigger by the decade. According to the National Shoe Retailers Association, shoe sizes for both men and women have grown about a size and a half over the past three decades. For women, the average size 7 is now an 8 and a half. Evolution experts say it's our food to blame. The more we eat, the bigger we get, and the bigger we get, the bigger our feet need to be to accommodate the extra weight.

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