Kellogg, John Harvey (1852-1943)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

John Harvey Kellogg was born on 26 February 1852 in Tyrone Township, Michigan and died on 14 December 1943. After graduating from the University of Michigan Medical School and Bellvue Hospital Medical College, in 1876 he was hired by the Seventh Day Adventist church as superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium (originally the Western Health Reform Institute founded by Ellen White), where he later became Director, in Battle Creek, Michigan. With his wife Ella Ervilla Kellogg, and his brother William Keith Kellogg, who in 1906 established the Kellogg's company, John Harvey Kellogg developed for the patients of the Sanitarium plant-based alternatives or "meatless meat," such as "Nuttose" and "Protose," and other foods, like peanut butter. According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, "Kellogg was working with his brother Will on a new kind of wheat meal for patients at the sanitarium when the process that resulted in Corn Flakes was accidentally discovered. Rolling out wheat dough that had been forgotten overnight, the brothers discovered that instead of loaves of bread they got thin flakes. Kellogg's patients liked the new food, and he sold over 100,000 pounds of the cereal in the first year. ... John Kellogg invented other popular food products, including peanut butter, granola, and a grain-based coffee substitute. He continued to run the sanitarium and to experiment with new foods, while Will left the hospital and founded the Kellogg Toasted Flake Company, the predecessor to today's Kellogg Company." The idea of whole-wheat breakfast cereal came from Dr. James Caleb Jackson, the founder of Our Home on the Hillside, who in 1863 invented the first cereal called “granula.”

His program of "biologic living" combined medical science, Temperance, veganism, and hydrotherapy, along with his life-long commitment to Adventism. However, due to controversy over the publication of The Living Temple, Kellogg was "disfellowshipped" in 1907. Still, he continued to direct the Battle Creek Sanitarium until his death. He was as devoted to improving spiritual health as he was to physical health, and in works like The Living Temple and “Shall We Slay to Eat?” he explicitly promotes ethical veganism.

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