Template:Short description Template:Infobox food

File:Granola03242006.JPG
A bowl of dry, plain granola

Granola is a food consisting of rolled oats, nuts, seeds, honey or other sweeteners such as brown sugar, and sometimes puffed rice, that is usually baked until crisp, toasted and golden brown. The mixture is stirred while baking to avoid burning and to maintain a loose breakfast cereal consistency. Dried fruit, such as raisins and dates, and confections such as chocolate are sometimes added. Granola is often eaten in combination with yogurt, honey, fresh fruit (such as bananas, strawberries or blueberries), milk or other forms of cereal. It also serves as a topping for various pastries, desserts or ice cream. Muesli is similar to granola, except that it is traditionally neither sweetened nor baked.

Granola is sometimes taken when hiking, camping, or backpacking because it is nutritious, lightweight, high in calories, and easy to store (properties that make it similar to trail mix and muesli). Manufacturers also add honey, corn syrup, or maple syrup to it and compress it into granola bars, which make it easy to carry for packed lunches, hiking, or other outdoor activities.

HistoryEdit

File:Granola advertisement, 1893.png
An 1893 advertisement for Kellogg's Granola

Granula was invented in Dansville, New York, by Dr. James Caleb Jackson at the Jackson Sanitarium in 1863.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Jackson Sanitarium was a prominent health spa that operated into the early 20th century on the hillside overlooking Dansville. It was also known as Our Home on the Hillside; thus the company formed to sell Jackson's cereal was known as the Our Home Granula Company. Granula was composed of Graham flour and was similar to an oversized form of Grape-Nuts. A similar cereal was developed by John Harvey Kellogg. It was also initially known as Granula, but the name was changed to Granola to avoid legal problems with Jackson.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The food and name were revived in the 1960s, and fruits and nuts were added to it to make it a health food that was popular with the health and nature-oriented hippie movement. Due to this connection, the descriptors "granola" and "crunchy-granola" have entered colloquial use as a way to label people and things associated with the movement.<ref name="granola_definition">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Another major promoter was Layton Gentry, profiled in Time as "Johnny Granola-Seed".<ref name="#CITEREF1972|Time 1972">Time 1972</ref> In 1964, Gentry sold the rights to a granola recipe using oats, which he claimed to have invented himself, to Sovex Natural Foods for $3,000. The company was founded in 1953 in Holly, Michigan by the Hurlinger family with the main purpose of producing a concentrated paste of brewers yeast and soy sauce known as "Sovex". Earlier in 1964, it had been bought by John Goodbrad and moved to Collegedale, Tennessee. In 1967, Gentry bought back the rights for west of the Rockies for $1,500 and then sold the west coast rights to Wayne Schlotthauer of Lassen Foods in Chico, California, for $18,000.<ref name="#CITEREF1972|Time 1972" /> Lassen was founded from a health food bakery run by Schlotthauer's father-in-law.<ref name="#CITEREFKlein1978|Klein 1978">Klein 1978</ref>

In 1969, during Woodstock, Lisa Law asked the festival organizers for $3,000 to buy, in New York City, rolled oats, bulgar wheat, wheat germ, dried apricots, currants, almonds, soy sauce, and honey to make muesli. Volunteers fed circa 130,000 people with Dixie cups.<ref name="americanhistory.si.edu/lisalaw/7">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="edition.cnn.com-twih.woodstock">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="smithsonianmag-woodstock-feed">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="nytimes-crosswords">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="woodstockpreservation-FoodLine">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="newberrymagazine-woodstock-dixie-cup">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1972, an executive at Pet Milk, St. Louis, Missouri, introduced Heartland Natural Cereal, the first major commercial granola.<ref name="#CITEREFKlein1978|Klein 1978" /> At almost the same time, the Quaker Oats Company introduced Quaker 100% Natural Granola. Quaker was threatened with legal action by Gentry, and they subsequently changed the name of their product to Harvest Crunch. Within a year, Kellogg's had introduced its "Country Morning" granola cereal and General Mills had introduced its "Nature Valley".<ref>Bruce 1995 p. 244</ref> In 1974, McKee Baking (later McKee Foods), makers of Little Debbie snack cakes, purchased Sovex. In 1998, the company also acquired the Heartland brand and moved its manufacturing to Collegedale. In 2004, Sovex's name was changed to "Blue Planet Foods".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Granola barEdit

File:Granola bar.jpg
Closeup of a granola bar showing the detail of its pressed shape

Granola bars (or muesli bars) have becomeTemplate:When? popular as a snack, similar to the traditional flapjack familiar in the British Isles and Newfoundland. Granola bars consist of granola mixed with honey or other sweetened syrup, pressed and baked into a bar shape, resulting in the production of a more convenient snack. The product is most popular in the United States,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, parts of southern Europe, Brazil, Israel, South Africa, and Japan.

Matzo granolaEdit

Matzo granola is a breakfast food eaten by some Jewish people during the holiday of Passover. It consists of broken up matzo pieces in place of oats. Many variations are possible by adding other ingredients.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Modern Jewish Cooking: Recipes & Customs for Today's Kitchen, Leah Koenig, page 24</ref><ref>Recipe for Passover matzo granola Template:Webarchive, Boston Globe, 18 April 2016</ref>

TrademarkEdit

The names Granula and Granola were registered trademarks in the late 19th century United States for foods consisting of sweetened whole grain products crumbled and then baked until crisp.Template:Citation needed The name is now a trademark only in Australia and New Zealand.Template:Citation needed However, the use of the term granola in Australia was clarified in 2012 when Sanitarium Health foods alleged trademark infringement by the word's usage on the product labels of Irrewarra sourdough. The Federal Court of Australia concluded that use of the word granola had become commonplace and could not infringe Sanitarium's right to the term when used to describe the product itself, rather than as a trademark.<ref>Australian Health & Nutrition Association Limited trading as Sanitarium Health Food Company v Irrewarra Estate Pty Ltd trading as Irrewarra Sourdough [2012] FCA 592; 292 ALR 101</ref>Template:Better citation needed

NotesEdit

Template:Reflist

ReferencesEdit

Template:Oats