I hope you’re not reading these lines while munching on Kellogg’s brand cornflakes. If so, you should postpone reading, as my article could easily sicken you. To be more precise: it is the personality of the inventor of cornflakes that could upset you.
John Harvey Kellogg was born in 1852 and grew up in Battle Creek, USA. He is the son of traders, devout Seventh-day Adventists, a faith he fully embraces. The young Kellogg quickly became interested in medicine and health, and in 1872 he began studying at Hygeio-Therapeutic College, a private medical school focusing on water cures and “hygienic therapy”. A somewhat strange institution, which seems to indoctrinate students more than teach them medicine and science. Five months later, Kellogg therefore decided to change and enrolled in the medical school of the University of Michigan, then in the medical school of Bellevue Hospital, in New York, where he obtained his degree in 1875. John Kellogg’s devotion to natural remedies was already so strong that, while still a medical student, he became editor of the Health Reformer, a journal devoted to this subject, which would later change its name to become good health.
Freshly graduated from medical school, Kellogg became, in 1876, the medical director of a 20-bed institution run by Adventists. At the turn of the century, he renamed it “Battle Creek Sanatorium” and enlarged it to accommodate 700 patients. In the 1920s, it received up to 1,200 patients. By this time Kellogg had become a household name in the United States, and he counted many leading industrialists and politicians among his patients.
A diet and a way of life supposed to cure all ills
To serve them well, John Kellogg and his family invented not only cornflakes, but also a whole host of foods, including peanut butter, soy milk formula, and imitation meats. Business was booming and proceeds went first to the Race Betterment Foundation, which Kellogg had established in 1914 to promote eugenics, i.e. the study of how to organize reproduction within a human population in order to increase the presence of hereditary characteristics considered desirable. The foundation organized three national conferences, a fourth was planned, but its holding was prevented by the Second World War.
In the sanatorium, the emphasis was on a diet and lifestyle that was believed to cure virtually all ailments, leading to a kind of purity of soul. Meat and spicy foods, as well as alcohol, were believed to overexcite the mind and lead to sin. Kellogg’s main treatments included a vegetarian diet, light baths (under the sun or artificial light for hours or even days), radiation therapy, regular exercise, various forms of electrotherapy, “vibration therapy”, electrotherapy, therapeutic massages, breathing techniques, colonic irrigations (using specially designed machines to administer 14 liters of water followed by half a liter of yogurt, including half had to be consumed, while the other half was administered by a second enema) and various water cures.
Kellogg was also obsessed with sexual abstinence, including various measures to avoid masturbation. For boys, Kellogg recommended circumcision without anesthesia, arguing that the trauma it caused curbed desire. If circumcision was not enough, he advised sewing the foreskin to avoid erections. For girls, he applied carbolic acid to the clitoris, “an excellent way to soothe abnormal arousal”.
“Racial suicide” and forced sterilizations
Much of what Kellogg did and advocated had a saving connotation. The language of body transformation and communion with the divine is associated with the practice of natural healing through God’s creation. Kellogg believed in the idea that God could touch mankind through nature. “Biological life” centered on purity, not only of the soul, but also of the race. Meat and alcohol were not only bad, they were considered “breed poisons”.
Kellogg insisted on the danger of “racial suicide”, a term which sums up white America’s fear of seeing its racial purity eroded and disappeared into “inferior races”. He also contributed to the implementation of a law providing for the sterilization of genetically “inferior” human beings, such as epileptics or people with learning disabilities. Michigan’s forced sterilization law, in which Kellogg participated, was not repealed until 1974.
Kellogg died on December 14, 1943 in Battle Creek, where he is buried. In his will, he bequeathed all of his assets to the Race Betterment Foundation, which closed its doors in 1967. What about corn flakes, his flagship product, still widely consumed today? Are they as wonderful and wholesome as Kellogg and his followers claim? First, they are boring and provide no pleasure in eating. Second, they are full of sugar and starch: there are much better options for a healthy breakfast. It is better to favor whole grains and in particular oats, fruits and yogurts…