What’s Really in Your Breakfast Bowl?

Last week at our Orange Hatter meeting, we dug into Chapters 2 and 3 of Fiat Food by

Matthew Lydian

and

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.

Let me just say—what we learned about the history of cornflakes completely blew our minds.

Did you know that the Kellogg cereal many of us grew up associating with a "healthy breakfast" was originally designed as a purposefully bland food meant to curb carnal desires? I know, it sounds crazy.

Here’s the story:

John Harvey Kellogg, a devout Seventh-Day Adventist, and others within the movement believed that red meat was the root cause of carnal desires, including the urge to masturbate.

Their solution? A vegetarian, tasteless diet to suppress these urges.

The extent of their beliefs included horrific measures, like the mutilation of children's bodies and caging their sexual organs.

Over decades, the Adventists infiltrated government systems and schools under the guise of "diet and nutrition education," fundamentally shaping U.S. food policies to reflect their vision of an anti-masturbatorial vegetarian utopia.

This whole thing isn’t just a bizarre piece of history—it’s a huge lesson in the power of influence and especially in the power of money.

None of us knew the cereal lining grocery store shelves was born of religious zealotry aimed at controlling human desires.

It’s a jaw-dropping example of how marketing and money can rewrite the narrative of a product and reshape public perception on a massive scale.

Think about it: with a smart marketing campaign, an entire nation was convinced to embrace a food product with a purpose most of us would never have imagined.

So, what else don’t we know about the food we eat?

If you’re curious, let’s keep the conversation going.