Notas del episodio
During World War II, the Manhattan Project gave radioactive polonium the code name Postum, after a caffeine-free breakfast drink of roasted wheat bran and molasses. That drink began in 1895 with C.W. Post, a sick man who had absorbed John Harvey Kellogg's anti-caffeine teachings at the Battle Creek sanitarium and saw a market in Victorian anxiety over neurasthenia. Post sold Postum as a cure for a lifestyle problem, and to crush cheap imitators he sold the identical product at a loss under the name Monk's Brew, then pulled it once rivals went bankrupt.
In 1911 his cousin Willis H. Post created a soluble version, and a 1912 ad for Instant Postum is the earliest known use of the word instant for a processed food. The company pushed the slogan There's a Reason and a ghostly cartoon villain named Mr. Coffee Nerves, and wartime coffee rationing sent sales soaring. After the war Postum became a staple for Latter-day Saints and Seventh-day Adventists, until FDA testing found it had more acrylamide by dry weight than any other product tested. Kraft discontinued it in 2007, fans hoarded jars on eBay, and in 2012 two North Carolina teachers bought the recipe.
- Post's company grew into General Foods, which was absorbed into Kraft in 1990.
- Radio sponsorships included Lum and Abner, The Aldrich Family, and the radio Father Knows Best.
- The teachers' firm, Eliza's Quest Foods, had Postum back in Walmart and Kroger by 2018.
- Mr. Burns throws a drink at Homer on The Simpsons shouting, You call this Postum?
- Postum sold during wartime rationing despite admitting it did not taste like coffee, because it preserved the morning ritual.