All right, so you think about breakfast, and what's the first thing that pops into your mind?

Well, for a lot of folks, it's cereal, a quick bowl of sweet, crunchy goodness before racing out the door.

But where did that come from?

I'm Patty Steele, an industrial kitchen accident and a family feud.

It's a nasty breakfast battle next on the backstory.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.

We're back with the backstory. In the late 1800s, if you walked into the quiet, very austere Battle Creek Sanitarium, a health resort in

Battle Creek, Michigan, breakfast didn't look anything like it looks today. No sugary cereals,

like frosted flakes or fruit loops, no colorful boxes, no cute little cartoon mascots. Instead,

guests at the sanitarium were served odd and tasteless

health foods designed to cure the ailments that modern life had inflicted on folks. And one of those

foods was born completely by accident and also led to a bitter family feud. The guy running the

sanitarium was John Harvey Kellogg, a doctor with some extremely unusual ideas.

There were rumors he'd never consummated his marriage with his wife, but he and Ella had 42 adopted

children.

Yes, I said 42. Imagine making breakfast for them. In the 19th century, most Americans

ate heavy breakfasts. They started their day with a plateful of meat, fried potatoes, biscuits, and

gravy if they could afford all that. John Kellogg was convinced that all that rich food was

destroying people's health, and in his mind, even their

morality. He believed that a really bland diet of grains and vegetables could purify the body

and the mind, because the more exciting foods were, well, too exciting. He wanted everybody

to just calm down. His sanitarium was based on lifestyle recommendations from the Seventh-day Adventist Church,

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