The plain box of cornflakes on the bottom shelf was born inside the Battle Creek Sanitarium in 1894, where Dr. John Harvey Kellogg preached a bland, 'unstimulating' diet to cure the national epidemic of dyspepsia while his younger brother Will Keith Kellogg managed the books. This episode separates the internet claim that cornflakes were an anti-masturbation food from the patent and marketing record, which framed them strictly as a digestive health product.

The conversation explains the accidental discovery of tempering when a forgotten batch of wheat dough was run through rollers, the three-way credit dispute between John, his wife Ella and Will, and the broad 1895 patent filed under John's name alone. It follows Will's 1906 break to found the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, his decision to add sugar, and his pioneering advertisin ...