By Marissa Beck
This health food imposter gained nutritional status on the sly. Nostalgia has Granola clinging to her salubrious roots; but her bark-scent is no longer earthy, and her skin has lost its chewy core. Today, Granola wears a different costume. Today, she is the Quaker man, cross-dressed as Toucan Sam in your breakfast bowl.
Preaching The Healthy Life
In the 1860’s, it was still a heart-healthy breakfast. But that was when granola, or “Granula” as coined by Dr. James Caleb Jackson, was neither “colorful” nor easy to scarf down.
Granula was a predecessor to our modern day Grape-Nuts and used Graham flour – rich in bran - to provide its wholesome punch. Graham flour is a type of whole wheat flour named after the American Presbyterian minister Reverend Sylvester Graham, an early champion of dietary reform. Graham was way before his time in decrying the processed white flour that had become a staple in most households. Back then, granula contained a hefty dose of dietary fiber, plant proteins, phyto-nutrients, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals and offered significant health benefits.
But it was Dr. John Harvey Kellogg who brought the cereal to the masses. As a Seventh-day Adventist, Kellogg preached health and wholeness, cornerstones of the church’s philosophy. His culinary and enterpreneurial exploits led him to develop a new breakfast cereal that bore an uncanny resemblance to Jackson’s concoction - both in contents and title. “Granula!” Kellogg called it.
Naturally, this didn’t go over well. Dr. Jackson sued his unoriginal competitor and received a nice settlement. Kellogg changed the name to “Granola,” perhaps to keep the sound of the cereal’s popular label. But Kellogg was more interested in his latest undertaking, Corn Flakes. As for granola, it grew to take on many a form…
Granola experienced a popular resurgence in the 1960’s when fruits and nuts were added to it and it became popular with the ‘hippie movement’, but by then it had departed from its predecessors’ hearty and heart-healthy roots.
Loaded with refined sugars and high in oil, granola packs a caloric punch and lacks fiber. As for the grain, rolled oats now take precedence over the bran-rich Graham flour - since they’re cheaper and easier to manufacture - and easier to coat in oils and sugars. One cup of Quaker Granola has as much as 40% of your day’s dose of saturated fat and rivals a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder in caloric content.
The grainy crux of the matter: granola is just another modern-day nutritional quack, luring you with its pseudo-healthy roots.
3 comments ↓
“One cup of Quaker Granola has as much as 40% of your day’s dose of saturated fat and rivals a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder in caloric content.”
OMG! thanks for giving me the heads up.
“One cup of Quaker Granola has as much as 40% of your day’s dose of saturated fat and rivals a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder in caloric content.”
OMG! thanks for the heads up.
Try steal-cut oats. They take longer to cook, but they are delicious and still healthy. (Unless there is something I don’t know…..!)
And, yes, I have noticed that oatmeal is getting worse and worse. I remember the instant stuff from my youth - with the “swirls” of raspberry flavored sugar. And now they have those pre-packaged bars that are marketed to parents as health food for their kids???
Oh well - it’s still probably better than all of the “fruit” roll ups that I ate when I was growing up.
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