A Short History of Granola, or Why Hippies are Crunchy

It’s hard to imagine the world before that quintessential breakfast item called cereal. Supermarket shelves are lined with flakes, clusters, squares and puffs of all kinds.  31% of Americans polled eat cold cereal for breakfast! Amazingly, the earliest incarnation of dry cereal was only invented in 1863 by Dr. James Caleb Jackson.  He called it “Granula.”

Touted as a healthy, whole grain food, Granula was simply baked, crumbled grains (and was not particularly delicious).  It wasn’t until 1897 that the name “granola” was coined by a man with the familiar last name Kellogg. John Harvey Kellogg, brother of the famous cereal man, invented a new kind of cereal that he called “Granula” as well but changed to “Granola” after Jackson sued him.

Granola as we know it was developed in the 1960s.  A revival of the health food movement made it popular among health food nuts as well as outdoor enthusiasts who needed healthy, energy-laden snacks for the trail.  The health food movement went hand in hand with the hippie movement and these two are credited with increasing the visibility of granola (and intensifying its deliciousness by adding dried fruit and nuts).  As a result, hippies were called “crunchy”, “granola” and “granola heads.”

But we think there are worse things.