Cornflakes were made for what??

The rumours are true, cornflakes were originally made to help stop people from masturbating.  

Yes, you read that right, the breakfast favourite was created by John Harvey Kellogg, who thought that really bland food would help stop people from masturbating. He had very firm beliefs that sex was ‘unhealthy’ and ‘immoral’, advocating instead for celibacy. But he didn’t stop there – sex was bad, but masturbating, or ‘self pollution’ as he called it, was even worse. 

And so, his solution was to create a food so boring that it would suppress sexual desire. He believed that ‘richly flavoured foods’, ‘seasoned meats’ and ‘stimulating sauces’ on the other hand, increased it.  

Now just to be clear, the cornflake recipe that John Harvey Kellogg was using back in the 19th century was not the same as the ones you’ll find in the supermarket today – apparently his cornflakes were completely free of both sugar and added flavours, and they were ‘so tough that they often cracked people’s teeth’.  

And so, a little later, John Harvey’s brother, William Kellogg, founded the Kellogg Company. He added sugar to the cornflakes to make them taste better, something which John Harvey refused to do because it would have ‘corrupted’ his cornflakes. We think the ones that William came up with are delicious.  

And to clarify, masturbation is not only not bad for you, but it actually has a whole bunch of health benefits, which you can see here, courtesy of Planned Parenthood.  

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