What's the origin of the cereal? What's its history?

Native speaker’s answer
Rebecca
Good question! From my understanding, cereal was invented in the 1860s in North America when James Caleb Jackson made what he called "granula" out of sorghum flour. Soon after, John Harvey Kellog made something he called "granola," and that seemed to stick around. It was originally meant to be a healthy nutrient-dense breakfast food. Previously, breakfast was quite a big meal, taken from the English aristocracy. And then the industrial revolution started, and working people needed easier to make, smaller meals before they started work. So cereal was a good solution for that! Then it became popular and marketed widely to children, which is why there are so many different sugary types of cereal we have today.