The Road to Wellville. by T. C. Boyle

Penguin Books Australia 1994

476 pág.

It began at a place modestly described as the healthiest on the planet: the Battle Creek Sanitarium, home of Dr John Harvey Kellogg - best selling health writer, first guru of bran and grunt, the Santa Claus of the digestive tract. And yes - of course! - he invented the cornflake.

Dr Kellogg's greatest achievement, however, did not come in a packet: it required instruction (and discipline). In 1907 middle America, near the founding factories of the cornflake, his patients were exposed to the invigorating properties of the five-times-a-day enema, the nourishing qualities of protose fillets, beetroot souffles and okra soup and, most important, the restorative effects of relentless self-denial.