Hey, here’s a fun fact for you – did you know the inventor of Corn Flakes, John Harvey Kellogg, was a physician and staunch believer that sex was damaging to the body and mind? Welp, Twitter sure as hell just found out.
John Harvey Kellogg was born today in 1852. He invented Cornflakes in 1878 in the hope that plain food would stop people masturbating.
— Dan Snow (@thehistoryguy) February 26, 2018
That’s right, old mate was actually a Seventh-day Adventist who was so against sex, he slept in a room away from his wife and never even consummated his marriage. They never fucked, not even to have children, choosing to adopt instead.
Given Kellogg’s views on sex, it’s easy to see why he thought cranking one out was even worse. “If illicit commerce of the sexes is a heinous sin, self-pollution is a crime doubly abominable,” he wrote.
And for that very reason, folks, he invented Corn Flakes, which were originally marketed as a “healthy, ready-to-eat anti-masturbatory morning meal”. Mr. Kellogg hoped that the delicious cereal would stop you all abusing your dang genitals.
In John’s head, meat and foods with rich flavours increased sexual desire, while plain foods like nuts and cereals suppressed it. I don’t know about you guys, but I can pinpoint at least three times in my adolescent years when I had a boner while tucking into a big bowl of Corn Flakes.
He even wrote a book – Plain Facts for Old and Young: Embracing the Natural History and Hygiene of Organic Life – in which he wrote some of the damaging symptoms of cranking one’s hog, including mood swings, bad posture, acne, epilepsy, palpitations and a fondness for spicy food.
So there you go, pals, that’s why we all put sugar on our Corn Flakes – they’re the blandest possible food a man hoped to create in the hopes it would quell your desire to rub one out.
