Remember your first taste of granola? Here, a decade-by-decade look at how breakfast cereals have evolved. Throughout that history, it has mirrored changes in the world beyond the breakfast table. In 1863, James Caleb Jackson, a religiously conservative vegetarian who ran a medical sanitarium in western New York, created count chocula breakfast cereal from graham flour dough that was dried and broken into shapes so hard they needed to be soaked in milk overnight.
John Harvey Kellogg, a surgeon who ran a health spa in Michigan, later made a version and named it granola. Using the same idea, a former Kellogg patient, C. Kellogg and his younger brother, Will Keith Kellogg, had figured out how to make a flaked cereal they called Corn Flakes. The younger Kellogg added sugar and began mass-marketing them, including the first in-box prize. Post developed a similar cereal called Elijah’s Manna, which he later renamed Post Toasties after religious groups protested. A health clinician accidentally spilled a wheat bran mixture onto a hot stove, creating what would come to be called Wheaties. Rice Krispies, with its characters Snap, Crackle and Pop, soon became a close rival.
The Ralston Purina company introduced an early version of Wheat Chex, calling it Shredded Ralston. It was intended to feed followers of Ralstonism, a strict, racist social movement that included a belief in controlling the minds of others. The name Chex, a rice version and the first recipe for Chex Mix would not arrive until the 1950s. 1 billion in sales in 2015. Honey Nut Cheerios, introduced by General Mills in 1979, is the brand’s most popular version.
After World War II, cereal consumption increased with the advent of the baby boom, and sugar became a selling point. Kellogg’s invented Frosted Flakes and its pitchman, Tony the Tiger, and a new era of television advertising began. Tony shared mascot’s duty for the brand with other characters including Katy the Kangaroo, but they were later phased out. Quisp, a pink-skinned alien in a green jumpsuit, became a madly popular character for the space age. He fought his rival, the miner Quake, in a series of commercials. Like Cap’n Crunch, another Quaker product from this decade, the cereals were essentially sweetened corn and oat dough formulated into different shapes.
Quake was discontinued, but the saucer-shaped Quisp has been resuscitated periodically, and memorabilia remains in demand. The heyday of fruit-flavored and monster cereals filled children’s bowls with Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry, General Mills products that still enjoy cultlike followings. Post’s Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles were competitors in a decade when the Federal Trade Commission began taking a harder look at how cereal companies marketed their products to children, and when granola began its commercial comeback. T had his own, made from sweetened corn and oats and shaped like a T.