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This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Grainger. Because when a drive belt gets damaged, Grainger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs. And next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
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The other day, I was craving a big, fat bowl of Apple Jacks. The cereal. Mm. 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 that have to do with cereal? So listen, buckle up for the dark history of Kellogg. Hi, how are you? Are you having a good day today? I hope so. 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? Cause 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. 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 Sabbatarian Adventism. Adventism. And it might sound familiar because, you know, these were the people who would go on to become the Seventh Day Adventists, or sda. Maybe you've heard of them. So religious. Okay. And that's fair. That's. Okay, fine. When John was 4 years old, baby John. When John was 4 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 5 foot 4 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. If the world was ending, you know? Thankfully, a local pastor pretty much like, 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 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 in the 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, unquote, 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 wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna. What am I gonna. 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 gonna remember that. And then, you know, when you actually think about it, maybe the next day or whatever, you try 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. Like, we've all been there. Personally, sometimes the tech, you know, it can be. 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. Listen, Squarespace is the all in one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online with their cutting edge design tools, including blueprint AI. You can literally type in like a few details about your idea and then they'll, like, whip up a custom website for you. I don't know. It's like having a designer and developer just to right in your pocket. From there, you can just drag and drop to make it look exactly how you want it to look. And if you actually want to do something with that idea, whether it's selling products, offering services, or just sharing exclusive content, Squarespace has the tools built right in. You can send invoices, accept payments, manage bookings, even run email campaigns to keep people coming back. Hey, come look at my haunted house. I Just posted about, you know, so it's everything you need all in one place so you can actually focus on, like, the fun part, your project or the passion or just the fun. Yeah. So if you've been sitting on that someday idea, Squarespace makes it possible to launch it today. Head to 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. So John Kellog 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. 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 possible. No meat, no booze, no caffeine, no spices, no sex, no jerking around, 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 hells, basically a spa. She's probably like, I need to get away from these people. I'm gonna 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 spa completely run by the Adventists. So while Ellen White's spa 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's spa to the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Yeah, it kind of sounds. It does sound very wartime. Porta 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 that energy. His facility was where you 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 San. So the San 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 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. Huh. 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 hitting 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. Joan actually brought it with her. She has it as you can see she's very pure. Do birds have clits? Is it burned off? Girl, 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 wiener energy. I bet you Kellogg had a small wiener and he was, like, kind of mad and bitter about it, so it was, like, kind of making everyone else suffer. It's 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, like, religious group and stuff, don't you want to procreate to make sure that you. 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, like, 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 valedictorian at Alfred University, where she got a degree in nutrition. Long story short, Ella ends up working at the San, where She and Kellogg fall in love. Or like, whatever John's version of love was. They probably. I don't even know if. Did they hold hands or was that too much? I don't know. Apparently, they spent their honeymoon rereading 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 San, 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 one eating at the San was 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. Hmm. 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, we 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'm probably in prison because he talked about sex and what kind of porn he watched a lot. So I'm thinking. Cause if he was eating mayonnaise, obviously that made him so horny. Cause 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 appointments. 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 you put it off and you put it off, and the next thing you know, you're like, damn, I really need to go to the dentist. So then you're trying to look for, like, dentist, and that's it. You know, It's a whole thing. But listen, with Zocdoc, you don't have to deal with any of that. Look, I've been using ZocDoc for years and I stand by it. It's the best. It's a free app and website that makes finding and booking a doctor actually easy. You can search and compare high quality in network doctors and then you can book them instantly in the app. You're just like, oh, they're available Tuesday at 8. Boop. Booked. It's the best. Sometimes you can even get an appointment like on the same day. It's wild. They've got more than 100,000 doctors across every specialty from like mental health, primary care, dermatology, dental, urgent care, obgyn, eye doctor, what are they called them? Foot doctor, acupuncturist. I'm telling you, the list goes on. Okay, Sometimes I'll just scroll to like find a random like doctor that I, I don't know what it is, but I'm kind of like interested and just see. I don't know, what do you do? Maybe I need to get my neck looked at for some reason and just book it. Cuz with you? Why not? Anyhow, once you find the right doctor, you just click and you book. Most appointments happen within 24 to 72 hours of booking, which is a huge difference from the hey, we'll see you in six months routine. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, we've been there. I'm like six months, yeah, my tooth is going to fall out by then, but okay, that sounds great. Great. I use Zocdoc for freaking everything and I highly recommend it. So if you've been procrastinating, a checkup, a dentist appointment, or maybe you got like a questionable rash going on, this is your sign. Use Zocdoc. So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to Zocdoc.com darkhistory to find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. That's Zocdoc. Z O C-O C.com DarkHistory Zocdoc.com DarkHistory now in the early days of the San, they kept things, you know, small and cozy. They would only take like 100 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, the San 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. 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. So when you. 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 San was to secretly cure everyone of sexual urges, but it was masked as, like, a luxury wellness retreat. Now, Kellogg wasn't performing intense, like, genital mutilating surgeries on everyone who came to stay at the San. You know, there were normal treatments offered at the San, 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 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 baths, 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, this man, Mr. Kellogg, he was so anti sex, but he was obsessed with putting stuff up his butt, you know? 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, it. Listen, shut up. Just try it at least once in your life. But an enema is when, like, fluid is shot 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 cleaned out, it's great. Seriously, afterwards you're like, I'm a brand new person. Cause 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 squatting 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, like, 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 bougie or a high end fat camp. Everything you ate was weighed and portioned with, quote, pharmacist level precision. Kellogg had this theory called autointoxication, 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, excitement 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, gastroenteritis, 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, okay. But Dr. Kellogg didn't just suggest eating yogurt. No, no, no, no, no. Ideally you would eat it, 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? Yum. What I do wanna know, were the yogurt enemas 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 flavored yogurt though. Cause at home I have like, you know, the vanilla yogurt. I probably shouldn't put that up my butt. Stay tuned. So this is a real thing? Yeah, you up the butt. You 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 rub downs. There are some clues here as to, like, why 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. You know, there's like shipping labels everywhere. Trail tracking numbers are kind of like scribbled on sticky notes. And then, you know, you gotta go to the post office and stand in line and you're carrying all these packages and you're like, oh, my God, it can be a lot, you know, and it can eat up a lot of your time. And honestly, it makes you, like, kind of avoid shipping things altogether, you know? But listen, ShipStation takes all that mess off your plate. 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Start your 60 day free trial at shipstation.com that's shipstation.com DarkHistory 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 words, 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. Well, it kind of looks like a small wiener, 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. It was crazy. Oh, my God. And then Kellogg would be like, oh, my God, I didn't touch myself. It was so wild. They'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. He 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, what happened next. So John had a younger brother. His name was Will. Now, Will helped him run the sanitarium. Now, John and Will were brothers and they worked 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 both bullied him for being dumb. Sadly, it turns out Will wasn't dumb. He just needed glasses. Yeah, yeah, poor guy. Will, he was actually very smart. He went on, he went to, like, business school, but, like, none of that mattered 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 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 San, 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 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 Adventists, 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 wheat berry becoming its very own flake. I guess. Surprise, surprise. Turns out the mold was the secret all along. Now, Will called 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 error, making sure it was just moldy enough but not toxic, Will figured 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 ground 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 San 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 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 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 get. 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. 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. 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 gonna act? You're gonna be like, fuck you. You know, he's pissed. He is pissed. He 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, 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. 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. 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. That recipe, and he. He added malt sugar and salt. And this totally transformed the moldy resort cereal into a feast for the taste buds. 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, like, you could use milk in it. So he knew, like, he could corner the market on corn flakes and milk. So 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 Corn Flake 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 this petty, but it's very confusing. Now to the consumer, he accused John of deliberately, like, confused, confusing customers and cashing in on his success. John fired back, basically saying, no, you're the one who's riding my coattails. It was drama. The boys were fighting. The two battled it out in court for over a decade. And the Kellogg vs 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 when, 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 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 8, 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 pro. You know, he's older now. He probably just came to his son, Sis, 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 rollercoaster 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. Corn flakes 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, I mean, 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. We wouldn't have Corn Flakes, Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Rice Krispies, or Frosted Mini Wheats. 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 world we live in now. For my dark history listeners, this episode, today's story, might sound a little familiar if you watched 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 kids, Kellogg's guy, was inspired by the graham cracker 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. Some delicious treats because we got the graham cracker. Who doesn't love a s'? More? And we got cereal. So moral of the story is, I don't know actually what 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 like, this sounds familiar. It's the Graham cracker episode. You should watch it. That was also a wild, weird, bizarre story because graham. 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 knot. 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 blowjobs and allegedly he had a tiny wiener. Join us next time when we will be diving into the one, the only, Ronald Reagan. Now, I'd love to hear your 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 Elvira's 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 leg day, you know, I mean, you can't be pumping it up at the gym and then like skip leg day. But I won't lie, when we were done, I was like, you guys can 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, 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 gonna 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 gonna 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. The details so I can get the. 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 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 send me an email. Let's connect. It'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. Is Marilyn Monroe reincarnated. Have you seen her? Hello, this is Marilyn Monroe reincarnated. I have to say that every time, do I? Okay, not to be rude, but just cause you have blonde hair and you put on a red lipstick doesn't mean you're rarely 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, but 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. 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 Audioboom original. I want to give a special thank you to our expert, Heather Arndt Anderson, author of 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.