WATCH: #AccidentalFood: Corn flakes were invented by mistake, and here’s how

According to a report by Pamela Cyran and Chris Gaylord, Kellog was in search of an easily digestible bread substitute, which led him to boiling wheat to make dough, but it never turned into dough because they let the wheat boil far too long.

According to a report by Pamela Cyran and Chris Gaylord, Kellog was in search of an easily digestible bread substitute, which led him to boiling wheat to make dough, but it never turned into dough because they let the wheat boil far too long.

Published Jun 20, 2019

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Most of us grew up eating corn flakes for breakfast. Even today we still do because it is something easy and quick to make, and it’s fulfilling. 

Because it is something that is not time-consuming, it became one of the popular breakfast options, but did you know it is part of the foods that were invented by mistake?

Studies show that corn flakes were created by John Harvey Kellog in 1894 as food that he thought would be healthy for the patients of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan where he was superintendent. Now how were they created by mistake?

According to a report by Pamela Cyran and Chris Gaylord on CSMonitor, William Kellog, John’s brother helped him search for new, wholesome diets for patients, and the two brothers were in search of an easily digestible bread substitute, which led them to boiling wheat to make dough, but it never turned into dough because they let the wheat boil far too long. 

They say that when William rolled out the wheat, it separated into large, flat flakes, so, after baking and tasting, the brothers decided it was a delicious, healthy snack worthy of their patients, and the patients pleaded for more after they left sanitarium.

Cyran and Gaylord reported that while John started the shipment process, William had an idea, to try the process with corn instead of wheat, and so the brothers experimented with more ingredients, creating Bran Flakes and Rice Krispies, and William decided to add sugar to some recipes.

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