MADE IN MICHIGAN: No Grapes, No Nuts; So Why Call it “Grape-Nuts”?

Grape-Nuts cereal. Created in Battle Creek, Michigan by C.W. Post. It contains no grapes. It contains no nuts. So why call it ‘Grape-Nuts’?

It’s made from barley, salt, wheat, and yeast – no grapes or nuts in sight.

One excuse – er, reason - says that Post thought glucose was formed. He referred to glucose as ‘grape sugar’ and the final product had a ‘nutty’ taste. Another reason – and one I’ve always believed – is that the cereal does indeed look like the seeds – or nuts – of grapes.

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Grape-Nuts made its appearance in 1897. It was originally baked into a stiff sheet, which was broken into pieces and put through a coffee grinder. Of course they needed to promote this weird new cereal,  but how? Post marketed Grape-Nuts as a medicinal food to help health and energy and to enhance “brain and nerve centers".

It didn’t spoil like other cereals, so Grape-Nuts were a staple during the 1920s and 1930s by explorers and expeditions. Grape-Nuts were also added to army rations during World War II before 1944.

Grape-Nuts was the second product created by C.W. Post, the first being his alternative drink to coffee, the grain-based “Postum”.

Decades before we even heard of Cap’n Crunch, Grape-Nuts took a very long time to get soggy – it almost never did. It still holds up to sitting in milk for a very long time without losing its crunch. And it began here in Michigan.