SoyInfo Center

by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi

A Chapter from the Unpublished Manuscript, History of Soybeans and Soyfoods, 1100 B.C. to the 1980s

©Copyright 2004 Soyinfo Center, Lafayette, California

Early Life and Health Teachings. John Harvey Kellogg was born in Livingston County, Tyrone Township, Michigan, on 26 February 1852, the fifth of twelve children. His parents were newly converted Seventh-day Adventists. In 1856 the family moved to Battle Creek, Michigan. From ages 12 to 16 John learned the printing trade by working with Ellen and James White at the Adventist Review and Herald Press. The Whites soon saw in this young man great drive and energy, a genius for organization, a keen and enquiring mind, and a persistent interest in the principles of preventive medicine, diet, and health. A few years later they decided to sponsor him through medical school. After initial study at the Hygeio-Therapeutic College run by pioneer health reformer Russell T. Trall at Florence Heights, New Jersey, Kellogg studied for a regular one-year term at the University of Michigan Medical School. He later transferred to Bellevue Hospital Medical College, then recognized as the nation's leading medical school, from which he received his MD degree in 1875. In his graduation thesis entitled "What is Disease?", he attempted to show that most disease, rather than being considered an enemy, should be thought of as a helpful warning from the body attempting to correct a natural function that had become "deranged." And pain should be thought of as a prompting to the sufferer to stop violating the natural laws of good health (Schwartz 1970; Johns and Utt 1977).

After graduation Kellogg returned to Battle Creek and in 1876, at age 24, he became physician-in-chief, in charge of the Western Health Reform Institute, which the Whites and the Adventist church had founded in 1866, based on Ellen White's health reform vision of 1865 and on a meeting with Dr. James Caleb Jackson. Jackson, a health reformer in Dansville, New York, ran a similar successful natural healing center. Kellogg remained closely connected with the institution for 67 years. He promptly renamed it Battle Creek Sanitarium (or San for short). The term "sanitarium" had first been used in England as early as 1851, but Kellogg gave it a new meaning: "a place where people learn to stay well" (Schwartz 1970). He then set out to eliminate meat from the Sanitarium dining room. To do so he worked closely with his wife, Ella Eaton Kellogg, to establish a special research kitchen in about 1877 to develop a wholesome and tasty vegetarian cuisine. Here he developed America's first meat analogs (meatless meats). Dr. Kellogg worked tirelessly to build the sanitarium into the largest and most progressive medical institution of its type in America, and the birthplace of modern dietetics. Dr. Kellogg took editorial control of a magazine that had started in 1866 as the Health Reformer, renamed it Good Health, and used it for many years to promote the sanitarium, his ideas on healthful living, and later his many food products, including soyfoods.

As the fame of Dr. Kellogg and Battle Creek spread, it became a mecca of health seekers, a social center . . . the place to go. Many famous people flocked to partake of its natural cures and vegetarian diet. Among Dr. Kellogg's patients were William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Alfred Dupont, J.C. Penny, Montgomery Ward, Lowell Thomas, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, George Bernard Shaw, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, and many others. Soon Dr. Kellogg's views on diet and health spread across America and around the world.

Dr. Kellogg made a continued effort to deepen and update his medical knowledge. He read the major French and German medical journals, developed an extensive personal medical library, and traveled to Europe in 1883, 1886, 1907, and 1911, each time to enhance his medical and surgical education by studying with top specialists in various medical fields.

In Dr. Kellogg's day, before Pasteur's germ theory of disease had come to be widely accepted, the standard treatment for most common diseases was "Bleed them, purge them, and drug them." The purging was with calomel and the drugging with arsenic, opiates, mercury combinations, prussic acid, or antimony. Some felt that more died of the cure than of the disease. Doctors were largely unaware of the therapeutic value of diet; they tended to class it (as many still do) with fads and foolishness.

Opposing the popular cures of the day, Dr. Kellogg expanded on Ellen G. White's teachings to develop a holistic approach to natural healing and healthful living that he called "Biologic Living." His first love was his mission to promote the "Gospel of Health," which included a simple grain-based vegetarian diet, exercise, hydrotherapy, fresh air and sunshine, good posture and dress, good mental health, and, when unavoidable, expert surgery. Biologic Living was preventive medicine at its best and its keystone, Kellogg felt, was proper diet. Dr. Kellogg strongly opposed the use of alcoholic beverages, tobacco, caffeine, sugar, narcotics, meat, and strong or hot spices. He disapproved of the use of eggs and grudgingly accepted the use of small amounts of milk and freshly-made cheese. However he heartily approved of yogurt and by 1909 became one of the first Americans to sell it and promote its use. He supported the vegetarian diet for both health and humanitarian reasons. He felt that taking life of any kind tends to brutalize human instincts and, in effect, accustom man to sanctioning violence and murder. Dr. Kellogg favored a low protein diet, which he believed increased resistance to disease, increased longevity, and contributed to greater physical and mental endurance. Excess protein, he felt, placed too great a strain on the kidneys and liver, and led to the accumulation of toxins in the intestines. Dr. Kellogg was a strong proponent of preventive medicine. Before his time many people believed that disease was a result of divine judgment or chance, but not personal habits and diet. Most people initially found it difficult to accept the germ theory of disease: how could such minute organisms as germs actually be dangerous?

Dr. Kellogg, himself, was living proof of the value of his teachings on diet and health. Although he was small in stature (5 ft. 4 in.; 163 cm) and had had his left lung destroyed by tuberculosis before he was 20, Kellogg was a dynamo of human energy, a personification of the work ethic, who needed only 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night, went cycling or jogging every morning, dictated 25 to 50 letters a day, adopted and reared 42 children, wrote nearly 50 books, edited a major magazine, performed more than 22,000 operations, gave virtually all of his money to charitable organizations, loved human service, generally accomplished the work of ten active people, and lived in good health to age 91. Most who knew him considered him a many-sided genius. Always a doctor, he had the rare ability of communicating to every patient the impression that their case was his number one concern.

Early Health Food Products. As part of the Sanitarium's vegetarian diet, Dr. Kellogg wanted to develop a healthful breakfast to replace the standard American ham (or bacon) and eggs. Since he regarded cereal grains as the basic food in a healthful diet, he wanted to include them in the breakfast menu in a convenient, ready-to-eat form. America's first successful cold breakfast cereal, brand-named Granula and made entirely from wheat, had been developed in 1860 by Dr. James Caleb Jackson, the health reformer mentioned above. In about 1877 Kellogg developed a similar product from a mixture of several well-baked grains and called it Granola. Dr. Jackson had developed a coffee substitute called Somo; Dr. Kellogg made a similar Caramel Cereal Coffee from a mixture of roasted bran and molasses. (He later developed other coffee substitutes.) Dr. Kellogg initially made these two new foods in the experimental kitchen only for Sanitarium patients. Soon, however, a mail order business developed from former patients and others interested in health reform, and in 1890 Dr. Kellogg organized the Battle Creek Sanitarium Food Company as a subsidiary of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. In a little wooden building Dr. Kellogg started America's first health food factory and the first of many similar Adventist health food companies. Battle Creek, took its first step toward becoming the "Breakfast Food Capital of the World." (From 1902 to 1906 forty breakfast cereal companies were formed in that one county in Michigan.) In 1892 Dr. Kellogg developed what was probably America's first peanut butter and added it to his product line. He did not attempt to patent it, since he felt it was something that everyone should have access to. In 1894 he developed and patented America's first flaked cereal, his rolled-wheat Granose Flakes. His younger brother, Will Keith Kellogg, did much of the work in developing, producing, and marketing these new breakfast cereals. In 1898 the Kellogg brothers (primarily Will Keith??) developed the first corn flakes, but soon a rift developed between the two. W.K. first used the word "Kellogg's" as a brand name, first added sugar to the corn-and-malt flakes, set up his own plant in 1906, and went on to make the product famous in America, promoting it into a multi-million dollar business. (A similar lucrative business based on Dr. Kellogg's food ideas was launched by C.W. Post who had shown intense interest in the experimental kitchens while a patient at the Sanitarium. In 1895 he started marketing Postum coffee substitute, in 1898 Grape nuts breakfast cereal, and later Post Toasties.) Many court battles ensued between J.H. and W.K. over the use of the Kellogg name; the doctor lost. This made him change the name of his company in 1921 to the Battle Creek Food Company.

Another serious rift developed between Dr. Kellogg and the Adventist church leaders, who felt he was losing touch with the spiritual dimensions of Adventist work and turning the Sanitarium (which he rebuilt on a grand scale after it was destroyed by fire in 1902) into a luxurious amusement center. Moreover the pantheistic philosophy expressed in his book The Living Temple (1902) was considered heretical. Dr. Kellogg felt that "the ministers and preachers discouraged health reform by their example and, moreover, had no business meddling in medical affairs." In 1907, after protracted conflict, Dr. Kellogg broke his ties of fifty years with the Adventist church; he retained control of the Sanitarium and health food factory. The Sanitarium was in its heyday from 1915-1930, but business was hurt by the Great Depression and it went into receivership in 1933.

During the early years of developing breakfast cereals, Kellogg also began to develop meat substitutes. In about 1895 or 1896 he received a letter from Dr. Charles W. Dabney, USDA Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and a noted agricultural chemist, suggesting that he undertake the preparation of a "vegetable meat" and that the navy bean might be suited for this purpose. At the time Kellogg was also concerned with providing enough protein for people giving up meat, so he set to work on the project. In 1896, the same year Ellen White made her call for an alternative to meat, he produced America's first meat analog or "meatless meat," which he called Nuttose (MacIvor says Protose was first??) and served as a main dish in place of meat at Sanitarium meals. Nuttose was a peanut-based cutlet made by grinding the nuts to a smooth paste, mixing with water to form an emulsion, thickening with flour or starch, then steaming or retorting until set. It could be seasoned to taste like beef, veal, chicken, or salmon, and served sliced or diced (Schwartz 1970). By July 1900 Kellogg's Sanitas Nut Food Company had an advertisement in the magazine Good Health selling Protose (a meat analog), Bromose, Malt Honey, Nut Butter, Malted Nuts (a milk substitute of ground almonds and peanuts in emulsion with malt syrup), and Maltol. Protose, combining peanuts and wheat gluten, became Kellogg's most popular product, with several thousand tons having been consumed by 1930. (Dr. Kellogg later noted that at the time he was developing his early meat analogs, he had not heard of soybeans.) A chart in the January 1904 issue of Good Health showed that the Battle Creek Sanitarium Co., Ltd. was now producing Protose. By December of that year Nuttolene, a pate, was also being produced. By 1906 Sanitas Meat was sold in 1-pound cans. In December 1908 the first ad for Nuttose appeared. By March 1909 Kellogg was producing nine commercial meat analogs. None, however, yet contained soy. During the early 1940s Kellogg's laboratories developed additional meat analogs such as Battle Creek Steaks, Battle Creek Skallops, and meatless wieners, each made from varying combinations of nuts (mainly peanuts), wheat gluten, and natural flavorings . . . but still containing no soy. At about (when??) the same time he was testing meat substitutes, Dr. Kellogg predicted, looking at the rapidly expanding population, that eventually Americans would not be able to afford the luxury of feeding 20 pounds of grain to a steer in order to get 1 pound of meat.

In 1898 Harry W. Miller, who would eventually become one of Kellogg's most famous students, enrolled in medical school at the newly-opened Adventist-run American Medical Missionary College at Battle Creek. By leading guided tours in the Sanitarium Food Company to help pay his way through college, Miller began to learn more about meat analogs and how they were made. A student in several of Kellogg's small classes, Miller was also deeply influenced by Kellogg's dynamic personality and by his teachings on diet and health.

Early Writings About Soyfoods. The first mention of soybeans by Kellogg (or by any Adventist) appeared in 1917 in his book The New Method in Diabetes in which he stated in passing that "The soy bean is a remarkable legume . . . and highly valuable food for diabetics." He then gave its nutritional composition. In the 1919 edition of the same book he gave two recipes for using soybean puree in soups and one soybean salad. In 1920 in The Health Question Box or A Thousand and One Questions Answered he devoted five pages to soyfoods, including a detailed discussion of tofu and its preparation and a clever method for quick cooking soybeans at home without the use of a pressure cooker as follows: soak the beans overnight, put them into a small crock (the type with a self-sealing lid in which apple butter was sometimes sold), add a little salt plus water to cover, seal tightly, set in a pot containing a saturated salt solution, and boil over high heat for 2 hours. The outer salt solution boils at above 104°C (220°F) rather than at 100°C (212°F), thus reducing the cooking time. By 1923 Dr. Kellogg was aware of the writings on soybeans of C.V. Piper and William Morse (The Soybean), Shih Chi-yien of China, and various other researchers. In The New Dietetics (1921), his best book on diet and nutrition, he devoted seven pages to soyfoods including discussions of soymilk, tofu, soy sauce, and soy sprouts. He now recognized the great role that soy had played in Oriental diets.

Starting in March 1921 Dr. Kellogg began to run articles about soyfoods in his monthly publication Good Health, which had a large circulation. This was one of the first US magazines to teach people about soyfoods. Articles (some of which were reviews of scientific journal articles) included "The Soy Bean in Chinese Cookery (March 1921, by Effie Funk Muhse, 7 p., including detailed information on the production of tofu, soy sauce, soy sprouts, and soy oil), "Food Value of the Soy Bean" (Aug. 1923, 1/8 p. including mention of soymilk and tofu), "The Dietary Value of the Soy Bean" (April 1927, 1/3 p.), "Better Food Values for Smaller Expenditures" (June 1927 by A.A. Horvath, 11/4 p.), "Soy Bean Milk" (Sept. 1928, 1/8 p.), "Chinese Babies Thrive on Milk from Beans" (Dec. 1928, 1/2 p.), and "A Soy-Bean Preparation for Infants" (Dec. 1929, 1/4 page).

During the 1930s the number of articles about soyfoods in Good Health increased, the tone became more enthusiastic, and Dr. Kellogg began to write some of the articles himself. In the December, January, and February issues of 1930 he serialized his 8-page speech titled "Soybeans as Human Food," which he had read to the American Soybean Association (11 Sept. 1930). Subsequent articles included "The Soybean an Excellent Source of Food Lime" (Dec. 1932, 1/2 p.), "The Mischievous Colon Bacillus" (April 1933, 3/4 p.), "Benefits from Acidophilus Milk" (Jan. 1935, 1/2 p.), "Wide Usefulness of the Soy Bean" (Oct. 1935, 1/2 p.), "Babies Thrive on Soy Bean Milk" (Jan. 1936, 1/2 p.), "The Alkalizing Power of the Soy Bean" (Jan. 1936, 1 p.), "Increasing Use of the Soy Bean" (Feb. 1936, 1/3 p.), "Soy Beans Versus Beef" (July 1936, 1/3 p.), "Usefulness of the Soy Bean" (July 1936, 1/3 p.), "Hope for the Farmer in the Soy Bean" (Oct. 1936, 1 p.), "The Great Future of the Soy Bean" (Dec. 1936, 1 p.), "Bread of Soybean and Wheat" (May 1938, 1/2 p.), "A Special Milk for Bottle-Fed Babies" (June 1938, 1/2 p.), "Germany Turns to the Soy Bean" (Aug. 1938, 2/3 p.), "The Soybean a Blessing to Mankind" (Jan. 1939, 1 p.). Soyfood were also mentioned in many other smaller articles not cited above, and in articles continuing into the 1940s.

Both Dr. Kellogg and his brother Will Keith Kellogg were widely in demand as public speakers. Both spoke at the annual meetings of the American Soybean Association (ASA). At his speech to the ASA in 1927 (Ref?? not in proceedings??), W. K. discussed the place of soy in human diets, saying: "Some day people in the United States will realize how foolish it is to feed 100 pounds of soybeans to livestock and get back a very small poundage of meat products, which have a protein inferior to the protein fed to the livestock." He also talked about soymilk.??

In September 1930 Dr. J.H. Kellogg spoke to the ASA about "Soybeans as Human Food." This was an excellent and comprehensive 20-page speech, containing many references to scientific studies on soyfoods, and indicating Kellogg's deep interest in and knowledge of soyfoods. He concluded: "It is evident that a plant possessed of such superlative values and such astonishing versatility and adaptability should receive far more serious attention than has heretofore been given it by the agriculturists of this country . . . There can be no doubt that it is destined to play a large part in the feeding of America's millions . . . "

By the early 1930s soyfoods had become one of Kellogg's major interests. It is known that Henry Ford was at least a guest of Dr. Kellogg's at Battle Creek, perhaps a patient. There has been speculation that Kellogg got Ford interested in textured soy proteins. In a letter to Mrs. Ford of 20 February 1932, Kellogg said that should the Fords visit his facility, there were a number of things that he would like to speak with them about, including a "vegetable meat." With the letter he included a sample of the meat analog he had developed. There is no response to the letter in Kellogg's files. In April 1937 Kellogg sent Ford a telegram asking for an interview. He explained in a subsequent letter that the bankers and large financial interests were trying to get control of his Battle Creek Sanitarium and Battle Creek Food Company. He also explained that he had made some discoveries related to foods from soybeans that he was sure Mr. Ford would like to know about. Shortly thereafter Kellogg's problems cleared up and the two never met at that time.

Dr. Kellogg had first mentioned soy in the 1917 edition of his book The New Method in Diabetes. In the extensively revised 1933 edition of this book he greatly expanded the section on soyfoods, giving a recipe for homemade soymilk prepared from freshly ground soy flour, plus four pages of instructions for making cultured Soy Acidophilus Milk at home.

Starting in 1936 there was a great increase in Dr. Kellogg's interest in soyfoods as indicated by his frequent mention of them in articles and in correspondence. In that year he exchanged numerous letters with William Morse (described later). He wrote Dr. A.A. Horvath in 1936 concerning soymilk. In a letter to Horvath of 13 August 1937 Kellogg invited him to visit Battle Creek and concluded saying "I am thoroughly convinced that the soybean is the most wonderful food product ever grown and that it must have been of immeasurable service to the Chinese." (Horvath had lived in China for many years studying soyfoods.) Kellogg also frequently wrote Admiral Richard E. Byrd, who was using soy acidophilus milk on his US lecture tour.

On 5 October 1937, Dr. Kellogg presented a major paper on soyfoods before the food and nutrition section of the American Public Health Association; it was entitled "Special Health Values of the Soybean." He pointed to the long history of soyfoods in the diets of people in East Asia, and stressed the high quality of their protein, the easy digestibility of their fat content, and the fact that they contained all the known vitamins except C.

Development of Early Soyfood Products, Soy Meal and Soy Acidophilus Milk. Prior to 1927 Dr. Kellogg and the Battle Creek Food Company began to market their first soyfoods. The first was a soybean meal (actually, probably a soy flour) made from heat treated fresh press cake and containing 53.8% protein and 9.2% fat. It was claimed to be "adapted to American culinary methods by a simple process, which improves the flavor and digestibility without impairing the quality of the choice of protein, which gives it its chief value." Kellogg purchased this soy meal or flour from the A.E. Staley Mfg. Co. He also sold a special soy biscuit for diabetics that contained 50-60% protein, 7-10% fat, and 1-3% starch (Horvath 1927).

Dr. Kellogg had long been interested in the virtues of fermented milks and the problems with cow's milk. As early as 1895 he had written an article entitled "Milk as a Food Unsuited to Adults," in which he stressed the various dangers of cow's milk and recommended a product called Kumyzoon (produced by his Sanitarium Health Food Co.) in which the milk lactose had been replaced by lactic acid. No mention was made of soymilk. In an 18-page pamphlet "Cow's Milk as a Cause of Disease" (1896), Kumyzoon had been replaced by Lac Vegetal, a milklike beverage made of ground almonds. The July 1901 issue of Good Health magazine contained a full-page ad headlined "Cow's Milk Kills Babies"; it promoted the milk substitute Malted Nuts produced by Kellogg's Sanitas Nut Food Co. In the November 1924 issue of Good Health, Kellogg wrote that cow's milk forms tough, large curds in the infant's stomach. The September 1928 issue of Kellogg's magazine Science and Health had a short article on soymilk in Italy. His first??

In the early 1900s, Dr. Kellogg learned of the work of Metchnikoff and Tissier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris that seemed to show that Nature protects us by providing friendly flora, especially Lactobacillus acidophilus, to guard the intestines. Many intestinal problems seemed to respond to Acidophilus Therapy, whereby the culture was consumed regularly as a way of changing the intestinal flora. Although Dr. Kellogg was not the first to produce Acidophilus Milk, he was the first person in America to practice Acidophilus Therapy for combatting colitis and various forms of intestinal and digestive disorders, and he probably did more to advance this therapy than any other person. By 1909 his food company was selling dairy yogurt and in 1911 he wrote an article about its use in the treatment of intestinal disorders. In 1912 he received samples of a special strain of L. acidophilus from Tissier, whom Kellogg credited with having devised a successful method for changing the intestinal flora. He began experiments using this in dairy milk.

By 1930 Dr. Kellogg was making his first soymilk at Battle Creek and serving it to some of his patients. Confirming earlier reports by Fischer (1914) in Germany on soymilk and other vegetable milks, he found that "It is digested more easily than cow's milk. The curds formed in the stomach are smaller, less gastric juice is required, and gastric digestion is completed sooner." He did not feel, however, that the product was of good enough quality to market it commercially. Dr. Kellogg, personally, drank soymilk regularly at mealtimes, often mixing it with a little cow's milk to improve the flavor. In 1937 he stated that his typical breakfast while he was living in Florida consisted of a glass of soymilk and a banana; he then ate only two meals a day.

By April 1933 Dr. Kellogg had discovered that L. acidophilus grew much better in soymilk than in cow's milk. He isolated a particular strain, which he called Soy Acidophilus; when grown in soymilk it produced 5 to 10 times as many organisms per unit volume as its counterpart grown in cow's milk--3,000 million to 5,000 million per gram of cultured soymilk. Moreover the soy acidophilus organisms were more than twice as large, more hardy, and less easily damaged by temperature changes. The culture retained its potency for 3 to 4 months, then slowly diminished. Armed with his exciting new discovery of an easy way to produce much larger quantities of very hardy L. acidophilus than had formerly been possible using cow's milk, Dr. Kellogg greatly expanded his research on using Acidophilus Therapy to change the intestinal flora; this soon became a key concept in his total therapeutic approach. When he examined the intestinal flora of infants, he found that the flora of healthy nursing infants was 90-100% L. acidophilus, whereas that of sick infants having dark and bad-smelling stools was only 10-20%. Changing the intestinal flora by simply feeding the sick infants Soy Acidophilus Milk seemed to cause the beneficial L. acidophilus to suppress putrefactive and pathogenic bacteria by producing lactic acid, which the undesirable bacteria could not tolerate, and also by crowding them out. Dr. Kellogg was soon stating that, "Every bottle fed baby should receive a teaspoonful of Soy Acidophilus Milk at each feeding as a protection against bowel troubles." Acidophilus therapy was also found to work well on adults in treating colitis (taken orally or by enema), toxemia, duodenal ulcers, gastric ulcers, constipation, and intestinal gas and infections.

In 1934 Dr. Kellogg was issued a patent on his Method for Making Acidophilus Soybean Milk (US Patent No. 1,982,944, Dec. 4). He was issued a British patent on 22 January 1936.

On 28 May 1934 the famous Dionne quintuplets were born in Callander, Ontario, Canada. Four months later, Dr. Kellogg happened to read that Marie, the youngest of the quints, was suffering from a severe bowel infection. Immediately wiring the quints' physician, Dr. A.R. Dafoe, Kellogg announced that he was sending him a supply of soy acidophilus milk, which he was certain would cure the problem. About ten days later he received a letter from Dr. Dafoe indicating that the cultured soymilk had indeed corrected the infection almost immediately, and requesting that a continuous supply be sent for the five little girls. The quints began by taking 1 teaspoonful of the Soy Acidophilus Milk at each feeding. By 1937 they were each taking 1 pint a day and remaining in good health, although whenever the use of the Soy Acidophilus Milk was discontinued, the bowel trouble quickly returned. Dr. Kellogg theorized that one cause for the susceptibility to this infection was that, because they had never been breast fed, they had never received the protective bacteria on the surface of the nipple, which most infants normally ingest while nursing. Dr. Kellogg tried for several years to obtain permission to use a picture of the quints on his product to promote its sales, but with no success.

In 1934, delighted with the results he was finding in his soy acidophilus treatments, Dr. Kellogg wrote (where??):

We are making increasing use of soy acidophilus with splendid results. I am sure it is very much superior to ordinary acidophilus milk as a means of changing the intestinal flora. Soymilk seems to greatly stimulate the growth of acidophilus, whereas cow's milk is such an unfavorable medium that prolonged training is necessary . . . A slow growing, dying milk culture, when placed in soymilk, springs into rejuvenescence at once, producing a good quality of cultured milk in less than 24 hours. It seems evident that a medium which exercises such a stimulating effect on the growth of acidophilus in vitro ought to be equally superior in the intestines. We find it of special value in old cases of toxemia in which the conditions are so unfavorable that the intestinal acidophilus has entirely disappeared. In such cases the soy acidophilus will reimplant the normal acidophilus flora within a week or two after other measures employed for months or even years have utterly failed.

In 1935 Dr. Kellogg reported that between 1912 and 1935 over 100,000 gallons of acidophilus milk (both soy and dairy) had been used in the treatment of patients at Battle Creek Sanitarium. From March to December 1936 The Battle Creek Food Co. ran a series of full-page ads in Good Health for Soy Acidophilus Milk. By April of that year the Sanitarium was using 200-250 gallons a week of the Soy Acidophilus Milk, and it was reported to be more popular with the patrons than cow's milk. In August 1936 Good Health published a recipe for Soy Acidophilus Ice Cream, made from the cultured soymilk. In October Dr. Kellogg began to make extensive use of ripe bananas with Soy Acidophilus Milk; the combination was found to be particularly effective in eliminating putrefactive bacteria from the intestinal tract. In late 1936 Dr. Kellogg set out to develop a powdered soymilk, which people could order from him, together with his culture, to produce their own fresh Soy Acidophilus Milk at home. His fresh cultured milk, which he claimed resembled human milk more than cow's milk, contained 3.6% protein and 1.5% fat. Its biggest marketing drawback was its short shelf life, requiring that it be shipped direct to customers.

By February 1937 Dr. Kellogg had developed both a powdered soymilk and a Soy Acidophilus Cheese. Made from Soy Acidophilus Milk, the cheese resembled cottage cheese, but contained as much as 250,000 million L. acidophilus organisms per gram! Samples of both products were sent to Dr. Dafoe to give to the Dionne quints. By 1937 Soy Acidophilus Milk was being produced commercially by Kellogg's Battle Creek Food Company in Battle Creek, Michigan, and by Home Milk Producers Association in Miami, Florida, a group connected with the Miami-Battle Creek Sanitarium that Kellogg had established in 1930. An excellent 9-page brochure describing its nutritional composition and curative properties was published by Battle Creek Food Company in 1937. In March 1940 Dr. Kellogg patented Soy Acidophilus Concentrate (Ref??) and wrote a brochure describing its virtues. Although Dr. Kellogg never developed his Soy Acidophilus Milk to its full potential (he was too busy with a thousand other things), it nevertheless continued to sell well commercially until the mid-1950s; it was probably his most original contribution to soyfoods development.

Later Soyfoods Developments. From the mid-1930s, Dr. Kellogg exchanged numerous letters with William Morse in which he asked Morse to send him samples of soybeans that yielded good soymilk and asked for Morse's comments on a sample of condensed soymilk Kellogg had produced. In March 1936 he told Morse that he was using a ton of soybeans a week to make soymilk, was experimenting with a dry evaporated soymilk, and also planned to plant 150 acres of soybeans for canning. He commented: "I consider the soy bean one of the most remarkable of the world's food products and expect to make increasingly large use of it." Morse wrote Kellogg the same month that he had seen a nice sample of dry evaporated soymilk produced by Dr. Harry Miller in China.

A photograph taken in 1936 of soyfood samples in William Morse's office showed the following Battle Creek products in commercial form: Soy Acidophilus Milk (in a quart bottle with the subtitle "A New and Highly Efficient Means of Changing the Intestinal Flora"), canned Soy Bean Flour (Low in Starch), canned Wonder Soy Beans (Baked), and canned Soy Gluten Bread (For the Diabetic).

In 1937 The Battle Creek Food Company was marketing Soy Acidophilus Milk, Soy Beans, Fresh Green Soybeans, and a Soy Gluten Biscuit, consisting of equal parts soy flour and wheat gluten, probably for diabetic diets. With the push to use more soyfoods during World War II and with Dr. Kellogg's growing interest in diabetic diets, the number of soyfoods grew. On the 1940 price list were: Soy Acidophilus (1-pint bottle; note the new name; 6.25% soy solids), Soy Beans, cooked (10 oz. can), Soy Beans, green (19 oz. can), Soy Gluten Wafers (3 l/2 oz.; 42% soy), Soy Flour (1 lb. or 4 lb. bag), Soy Gluten Bread (canned), Soy Kee (16 oz.; 100% soybean roasted coffee substitute), Soy Milk (condensed 10-ounce can), and Soy Spread (8-oz. can). Dr. Kellogg also developed a Soy Meat, canned Protose with a soy filler, a product he hoped to be used in the rations of the US army guerrilla unit, because it needed no refrigeration.

In 1942 The Battle Creek Food Company began to market its first commercial soymilk, brand-named Soygal. It was said to be excellent for those allergic to cow's milk and to have a little beany flavor. Apparently it was not very successful, as it was soon dropped from the product catalog.

In 1943 Dr. Kellogg developed his first soy-based meat analog, Soy Protose, which contained 32% soy. Other Adventist soyfoods pioneers such as T.A. Van Gundy and Madison Foods had produced soy-based meat analogs in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1944 a malted product was added to the line. But after World War II, interest in soyfoods dwindled. The 1955 price list contains only three soy items; Soy Acidophilus (1-pint bottle), Soy Flour (2 lb. or 5 lb.) and Soy Flakes (5 oz.). In 1959 Soy Beans were added back. The only soyfood in the 1960 catalog was soy flour. In 1960 the entire assets of the Battle Creek Food Company, including the patents on various soy-based meat analogs, were acquired by Worthington Foods, which, in 1981, was the world's most important producer of soy protein-based meat analogs.

Will Keith Kellogg, of Corn Flakes fame, did some work with soy during the 1940s. In 1945 he developed Kellogg's Corn-Soya, a flaked breakfast cereal. It was being distributed nationwide by 1947.

Dr. Kellogg died of pneumonia on 14 December 1943 at age 91. (His brother W.K. also died at age 91.) Yet over the years Dr. Kellogg's influence on the world of soyfoods continued to grow, especially as the meat analogs he had first developed grew in popularity. At an early date, his ideas and recipes were picked up and creatively adapted to new soy products by Dr. Harry Miller, Jethro Kloss, Madison Foods, Loma Linda Foods, Worthington Foods, and many Adventist sanitariums and small food companies in America and overseas. He was the grandfather of a host of prosperous soyfoods lineages, many of which are with us today.