James Jackson (1811-1895), a vegetarian operated the Dansville Sanitarium in Dansville, New York, advocated eating healthy food.
He prepared heavy dough out of Graham flour and water. He baked slowly until the loaves were very dry, before broke these up into small chunks. Then he baked them again, and finally ground the brittle chunks into smaller pieces.
He named this preparation ‘Granula’ which closely resembles Post’s Grape Nuts, and it was served for breakfast after soaking overnight in milk. Granula is the great grandfather of today’s granola and also predecessor of modern cereal.
John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) visited Jackson’s sanatorium and like the granula. Upon his return, Kellogg duplicated Jackson’s formula and began selling it. Evidently Jackson threatened to sue him, so Kellogg changed the formula in 1881 and called his product granola.
Within eight years Kellogg’s Sanitas Food Company was selling two tons of the cereal per week.
Invention of precooked cereal by James Jackson
