The Objective Observer

 New RSS feed!

Technology

• Freedom from Intelligence
• Penguin Suicide Bombers
• Is This The Web That We Created?
• All About Grape-Nuts

My wife and I were quietly enjoying what we both later agreed was the absolute best bowl of cereal in our lives when I notice the Grape-Nuts cereal box on the breakfast tray situated between us on the couch. Yes, that’s right, we have a breakfast tray. Born of necessity, or perhaps just laziness, we have a tray that we tote breakfast cereals, milk, bowls and spoons; all of the necessities for a good healthy start to the day. It resides at either end of our single level ranch home, those ends being the kitchen and the master bedroom. It’s a long walk to the kitchen in the morning so the breakfast tray was introduced to quickly ferry breakfast from one end to the other. Later, admittedly out of sheer laziness, we then ended up putting a refrigerator and microwave in the master bedroom and the breakfast tray became a roving unit in the house, always stocked to deliver up its crunchy, whole grained bowls of goodness.

I was wondering about that box of Grape-Nuts cereal on the breakfast tray. Something about it intrigued me but I wasn’t exactly sure why. It was smaller than the other boxes, not just shorter, but less wide, and it was pretty plain all things considered. Then it hit me. Why in the world was it called Grape-Nuts? I stared at it some more. Finally, I picked up the box and poured over it to find the ingredients. Nope, no grapes. Nope, no nuts. I read the nutritional information. Still no grapes or nuts. Crazy.

My wife; now piqued by my fumbling with the box of Grape-Nuts, peered over the edge of her bowl, squinted her eyes and looked at me side-ways. “What are you doing?” she queried, in between rapid spoonfuls of Corn Pops, Grape-Nuts, Corn Flakes and Fruit Loops all mixed together. Don’t ask, she’s got me hooked now too so I guess I can’t make fun of it.

“I’m interested in this box of Grape-Nuts,” I replied. Luckily, her mouth was full as I blurted this out and so I followed up quickly before she could swallow. I could see the quips swirling in her head and the frustrated look as she fought hard to choke down her cereal and retort. “I can’t figure out why in the heck they are called ‘Grape-Nuts’. It doesn’t make any sense, they don’t have grapes or nuts in them, they’re just these little flaky things.” By this time, I had poured a small mound of these so called “Grape-Nuts” into my hand and was inspecting them at close range.

My wife stopped long enough to put down her bowl and thought for a minute. “Hmm, my dad ate those things for years while I was growing up. I always thought the name was odd, but now it just seems even more stupid,” she sighed with disgust.

I couldn’t actually tell if it was disgust or mock disgust so I just shook my head in agreement. “I know. I guess I always just thought that maybe it was because they are hard like little grape seeds or something, but that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. I mean, come-on!”. Silence.

“Well, there has to be a reason.” I declared. Her eyes narrowed again, I could see the quip half-formed in her head…something along the lines of “Thank-you, Mr. Obvious.” But she spared me. Odd, I wouldn’t have spared me if I were her. I had obviously roused her interest. Before she could change her mind and hammer me, I needed to make a quick exit. “I’ll go look it up on the Internet.” I declared decisively and with that carried my bowl to my office and brought up my web browser.

http://www.askjeeves.com

“How did grape-nuts get their name?”

I hit the Ask button. Google may be all the rage in search engines nowadays but, I still find good ol’ Jeeves useful for these types of inquiries. Jeeves responded back with a list of potential web pages, one of which stated:

“The Straight Dope: How can Grape-Nuts cereal contain no grapes or...”

Bingo, sounded like a winner. The article looked like a reader writing into a food or legal critic. The question was essentially about how the Post division of General Foods could get away with what the inquirer viewed as misleading advertising since Grape-Nuts contains no grapes or nuts. Sounded familiar. Cecil, the expert, replied that Grape-Nuts were introduced in 1898 by Charles W. Post, who had a penchant for creating fanciful names for the products he sold. The article also said that he originally called his Post Toasties, “Elijah’s Manna”. Oh my. The name grape-nuts came about because the cereal had maltose, grape sugar, in it and because of its “nutty flavor”. Since the Pure Food and Drug Act and FTC did not come along until 1906 and 1914 respectively and had specific exclusions for “fanciful” names, they apparently felt no need to mess with Mr. Post and his fanciful “grape-nuts”.

I ran off to tell my wife. “Wow”, I huffed, out of breath from relating everything I had learned, “That must make Grape-Nuts the oldest name-brand cereal in the world!”

My wife again looked intrigued. It’s the fishhook in the eyebrow thing. “I don’t know,” she mused. “What about Quaker Oats?” Silence.

“I’d thought of Quaker Oats too.” I mused back, cupping my hand around my chin and rubbing slowly.

“I’ll see you in 10 minutes,” she laughed. And off I ran back to my office.

Within minutes I ended up at The Columbia Encyclopedia online. I learned that the first precooked cereal was invented in 1863 by James Jackson and was called granula. Dr. Kellog invented a similar cereal in 1877 and called it granola. Subtle Dr. Kellog, real subtle. But it was not until 1902 when Dr. Kellog introduced corn flakes that cereal hit it big.

That was some good stuff, but I knew I could do better. With a little luck and patience, I hit a past article in The Old Times Newspaper from January 2002 by David Christenson. The article was about some guy that collects old cereal boxes. Because everyone ate the cereal and threw away the boxes, old cereal boxes are exceedingly rare and therefore collectible. Makes enough sense I guess. The article was interesting enough that I nearly fell into the great abyss of the Internet. The place where time stands still and before you know it, you realize you haven’t showered in three days. I mean, there was Quisp, one of my childhood favorites! And Spock on a box of Sugar Smacks! Too much. Somewhere in the back of my mind glimmered the faint wisp of realization that I would now spend the next hour or several days randomly browsing the Internet with no real purpose. I ignored it. But then…I hit the mother load.

Tucked away in the middle of the article was a whole, entire history of packaged cereal. It began with Quaker Oats.

Damn, I hate it when my wife is smarter than me. Well, at least as smart, I’d thought of Quaker Oats too. I cupped my hand around my chin and rubbed slowly. Self-justified, I continued reading the article.

Quaker Oats came along in the 1870’s. Before that, you just bought cereal out of big bins at the local grocery. Quaker Oats was marketed as being more sanitary. Then came Cream of Wheat in the 1890’s. But they were both packaged cereals designed to be eaten warm. Packaged cereals designed to be eaten cold was where Dr. Kellog and C.W. Post came into the picture. The two ran rival health resorts and in 1898 introduced Sanitas and Grape-Nuts respectively. Sanitas was a corn flake cereal that went stale quickly and so was never wildly popular. Wow, and another reference to Post Toasties being called “Elijah’s Manna”. Incredible.

There was a ton more information in the article, but I already had more information than I would remember, so I scurried off to find the wife. I found her in the kitchen. She listened intently as my discoveries came blasting out of my mouth like water from a hydrant.

“So, I was right that Grape-Nuts is the oldest brand name cereal still in existence, if you are counting cold cereal. And you were right about Quaker Oats,” I added grudgingly. “That came before Grape-Nuts but was designed to be eaten warm. So we were both right.” I smiled and she smiled back knowingly. That’s when both eyebrows go up and slightly pinch together. Apparently, she had decided to be nice today and let me retain my delusions of intellect. Woo-hoo!

And this would have been the end of it except that our friend, Lynn, stopped by later in the day. My wife and I took turns badgering the poor guy with cereal knowledge. Poor Lynn. He actually did seem to listen intently, though. Finally, just as I thought he was either going to tell both of us to please stop with the cereal information or have his head explode, he came out of left field with...

“You two have to go see ‘The Road to Wellville’”. I looked at him dumbfounded. What kind of rash, non-sequitur response was that?

“It’s about a health club owner in the 1900’s inventing corn flakes.” He continued.

“It’s about Dr. Kellog and his health spa?” I asked incredulous.

“Yah. It’s a funny movie, you would enjoy it. Matthew Broderick is in it,” he added.

Amazing. Back to the Internet. “The Road to Wellville”. Released in 1994 starring Anthony Hopkins, Bridget Fonda, John Cusack and Matthew Broderick. The movie is set in 1907 at Dr. John Harvey Kellog’s Battle Creek Sanitarium, a health spa for the wealthy. And Dr. Kellog is some sort of crazed health radical. The review rated it as “Questionable”. Seemed like an odd rating. Slowly, I realized that the site I was viewing was more sinister than the typical loud-mouthed hack of a movie critic website. Oh no. Apparently this website was only interested in how animals were treated in various films. The focus of the review was really about how the animals were treated, not the film itself. A rating of “Questionable” meant, “While no animals were intentionally harmed in the making of the film, some questionable practices were used.” Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself:

http://www.ahafilm.info/movies/moviereviews.phtml?fid=6674

As it turned out, the website is run by the American Human Association, Film and TV Unit! Are you kidding me? Their slogan…”Protecting Animals in Film and Television”. Unbelievable. If you get a chance and desire proof positive that there are other people in the world with even more worthless lives than you or I, I highly recommend checking it out, http://www.ahafilm.org

The Internet is truly a fascinating and helpful resource for finding the answer to nearly any inane question. If you have wondered about it, the answer for it lies out there on the Internet. And the amount of information that can be obtained is absolutely staggering. I am certain that I have only scratched the surface of Grape-Nut history and yet I already know why Grape-Nuts are called “Grape-Nuts”, the entire written history of warm and cold packaged cereal, the synopsis of “The Road to Wellville” and that there is some crazy organization out there that reviews films based solely upon how animals are treated.

That last part is pretty disturbing, actually. The information age is truly wonderful, but it’s a little scary at the same time. It has given exposure to thousands of voices who would otherwise lead worthless lives in anonymity. And most of us would sigh, “Thank god!”. Even the non-religious ones. Now, through the phenomenal power of the Internet, these voices, and their worthless lives, are exposed on the web to the masses, who; apparently, have nothing better to do than browse these websites thinking. “These people HAVE to be on crack!”

The Internet, the great time waster. People waste their time to provide content and other people waste their time consuming that content. It is a sick, twisted little circle that feeds inexorably upon itself. It’s a nauseous, corrupt version of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon where with each link the information becomes less useful and finally just plain weird.

There is a link on AHA’s website declaring “HELP STOP the BONSAI KITTEN and other website hoaxes!” I have to admit, it’s tempting, but I think I’ve had enough for one day.