Break Fast: BigFood, Eugenics and Agenda 2030

In response to Subscribers' requests, a look at ultra-processed 'foods' - starting with cereals.

Intermittent Fasting is gaining popularity for Us Lot seeking alternative solutions to staying healthy and far away from the unethical healthcare illness system. For instance, see this Substack or this Substack Post, or Dr Berg on YouTube. And this got me thinking about the role of break-fast and how my view of Them lot and breakfast has changed.

Kid’s cereals: Does this look like anything nutritious and healthy to you?

Remember that phrase your parents used:

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!”

But is it? How can parents believe THIS is a ‘healthy start to the day’ for their kids?

Kellogg's Coco Monkey marketing

Inside a typical supermarket today, you’ll find probably a whole aisle or more dedicated to cereals, along with the relatively recent gimmicky ‘breakfast bars’ and similar breakfast ‘snacks’. Appalling. But back in the 1970’s and early 80’s of my childhood, there wasn’t really a modern supermarket, or much choice when it came to breakfast. If there was no time for boiled-egg-and-soldiers, Kelloggs Cornflakes (more on that in a moment), Weetabix or authentic raw porridge oats were about the extent of my options (served with water, if no milk had been delivered to our doorstep)! But Ready Brek was a clever way to sell ‘convenience’ to working mothers short of time for full-blown porridge (2 mins):

Ready Brek belongs to the Weetabix group. Not to be confused with the popular New Zealand Weet-Bix brand, owned by Sanitarium (more on Sanitarium in a moment).

And I admit I was surprised to find the original Weetabix product still doesn’t have any (explicitly) added salt or sugar. But it’s still nearly 60% carbs and of course has folic acid etc added. BUT let’s zoom out a little…

Weetabix Food Company is a subsidiary of Post Holdings, Inc., headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, US. Post Holdings may not sound familiar, but it’s a massive corporate packaging company, with numerous ultra-processed ‘food’ brands that UK/American readers may recognise:

By the way, fancy some baking? Looking at Post Holdings website, I found this delicious-sounding recipe. Why not add EVEN MORE sugar, to an already sugar-laden breakfast cereal?

A ‘suggested recipe’ using a cereal that is already 24% sugar!

Sanitarium was founded by an American early-settler community of Seventh Day Adventists. Originally, the company’s philosophy was about disciplined living like abstinence from alcohol, and a plant-based diet. Nowadays, they have diversified from health food and cafes into a provider of health and safety training like Vitality Works, partnered with - wait for it - the mining industry. Among other interventions, they promote an online course called ‘CHIP’ which stands for ‘Complete Health Improvement Program’. Apparently it’s an “evidence-based lifestyle intervention designed to prevent and facilitate the reversal of common lifestyle diseases”. Sounds great, right? Along with the ‘evidence-based science’ that ‘supports’ its efficacy. But I waded through the sludge of some of these papers (like this one) so you don’t have to. Yup. As we’ve come to expect, it’s methodologically weak, sometimes flawed, and results are inconclusive. Plant-based protein seems to be heavily promoted in Sanitarium’s product and training portfolio, which we know is one of the UNs SDGs of Agenda 2030. “You vill eat zee bugs” (see

Deconstructing 4IR Narratives

for details)

You won’t be surprised either to know there are historical connections between Sanitarium and Kelloggs. For instance, Dr John Harvey Kellogg of Michigan partnered with the Sanitarium in the early days of production of Cornflakes with the Michigan-based Seventh Day Adventists. In this clip from Sanitarium’s archives they conveniently skip over those inconvenient truths…

Screenshot below from the doco above detailing the Kellogg connections:

Excerpt from the archives doco above

Not coincidentally, according to Edwin Black’s book ‘War Against the Weak’, it was the Dr John Harvey Kellogg mentioned above, who founded the Race Betterment Foundation in 1906. Some of the most radical eugenicists from that time formed its membership. It was agreed at their First Conference (1914) they would agree a ‘three pronged program’ based on sterilisation, mass incarceration and sweeping immigration restrictions. Their objective was to eradicate the ‘feeble-minded and defective stock’ (of humans) in favour of a ‘super race’. From Stout’s article:

“Michigan was the first state to propose eugenical sterilization in 1897, although the first sterilization law in the state did not pass until 1923. This law, upheld in court multiple times, led to 3,786 officially documented sterilizations. Seventy-six percent of these were on people deemed mentally deficient, 11% were people considered insane, and the other 13% were sexual deviants, people with epilepsy, or “moral degenerates.” African Americans and poor people were the main targets.” (Also, an interesting 1928 Conference Proceedings here).

I know Sanitarium distanced themselves from the Kelloggs/eugenics connections. But currently, there are some interesting strategic partners of Sanitarium’s health interventions arm - pictured on the screenshot here (from the above doco):

More on this another day. But a shout out to

Mark Halliday Sutherland

for raising the my awareness of eugenics in Australasia. What a dark subject it is.

Returning to some humour in the UK, another memorable TV advert was presented by the famous cricketer (now Lord) Ian Botham: “Bet you can’t eat three!” (see clip below) How clever of the marketing people to encourage consumers to ‘Go Large’ as McDonalds would say:

Shredded Wheat seems to have evolved too, over the decades, like many other cereals, it belongs to the BigFood Nestle brand:

Like Post Holdings, Nestle propagandists have a skill for avoiding the ‘S’ word, using instead, words like ‘fruity’ or ‘taste of honey’ and upselling the claims of healthy fibre:

“Every box of CHEERIOS^® breakfast cereal brings a good balance of nutrition and taste to your family’s breakfast table. What is different about CHEERIOS^® is that it is high in fibre from three different whole grains – Oats, Wheat and Barley.”

What the promoters omit is how many grams of sugar (12g in 40g ‘serving’ of the ‘honey’ version) is included, before other stuff is added. And is there anyone who actually weighs-out a 40g (1 ‘cup’) serving to their bowl? Seriously, no matter what the package says, if you really believe this stuff is ‘healthy’ and ‘natural’ and ‘low sugar’ and ‘low salt’ - you may as well eat a doughnut for breakfast!

Kelloggs Frosties mascot ‘Tony Tiger” has an interesting history - I hadn’t realised his first appearance was back in 1952. But of course it was the TV adverts that made the 70s/80s such a profitable era for BigFood. And Tony went from being portrayed as a friendly ‘cat’ to a muscular, anthropomorphic tiger during that time, as if to emphasise Kelloggs ‘healthy’ lie.

This product caught my eye on their website:

Finally, to return to a truly healthy break-fast, why not simply ‘skip it’? Honestly, extending your nightly fast by a few hours definitely has lots of health benefits, as the posts at the top of this article point out, very convincingly. Who needs BigFood anyway, right? The rule is, if it’s in a box, and doesn’t look anything like the original food it is trying to represent - it ain’t food! Do you have a personal breakfast story to tell? Do share below - love reading your comments.