Utopia In a Cereal Bowl
John Harvey Kellogg read Graham's writings as a young man in medical school. He was less concerned with sexuality than was Graham, but he also believed the high-protein American diet, heavy on meat, eggs, butter, sugar, and whiskey or ale, was causing an epidemic of illnesses: "dyspepsia," or acid indigestion, constipation, and "auto-intoxication," or the growth of bacteria in the colon due to lack of fiber. These diseases could be reversed only by a diet of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; abstinence from alcohol and sugar; and water to cleanse the body and the spirit. "By the 1880s, there was also a real movement to believe in the virtues of clean, country air," says Schwartz. "So Kellogg combined this out-of-doors notion with the spa and linked these to the earlier traditions of the temperance movement and Graham." But unlike Graham, Kellogg had to meet the demands of clients like Thomas Edison, President William Taft, and Amelia Earhart, who came to the San for his "water cures," yogurt enemas, and special diets: Development of health foods--not just health-food theory--was essential.
Kellogg made and popularized "nut butters," including peanut butter, as a substitute for "cow butter." He also created America's first meat substitute, from flour, water, and steamed peanuts. Not quite tofu, perhaps, but prescient nonetheless: While a century ago the idea that a healthy diet is based on fruit, vegetables, and whole grains seemed like the quirky brainchild of wacky health reformers, today we know better. Or at least, we think we do.
Measure Once
A product of the late-19th-century domestic-science movement, Fannie Farmer's 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book was the first to popularize standardized measurements. She offered recipes for now-classic meals and directions on using newfangled measuring devices: "To measure tea or table spoonfuls, dip the spoon in the ingredient, fill, lift, and level with a knife, the sharp edge of knife being toward tip of spoon. Divide with knife lengthwise of spoon, for a half-spoonful; divide halves crosswise for quarters, and quarters crosswise for eights. Less than one-eighth of a teaspoonful is considered a few grains."
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