When I was a child, my mother had a friend with a cat named Crunchy Granola. The friend was pure crunchy granola herself— she served acorn squash for dinner, taught me how to macrame and literally had a tree growing inside her house. The image of this woman came flooding back to my mind recently, while I was standing in a Swiss supermarket. In the stores I've frequented there, the cereal aisle is basically a muesli aisle, abundant with oaty, fruity varieties of the stuff and only a nodding amount of space for a few screaming American style cereals. Yet I've never heard of anyone — Swiss or otherwise — described as a "muesli type." I've wouldn't know what a Cornflakes or Rice Krispies personality would even be. Even generational shorthand avocado toast doesn't really communicate character traits. But on Pinterest, you can find "granola core," "granola mom," and "granola style," with recent pointers for where to shop for your "Granola Girl Aesthetic." How did a breakfast cereal become an entire personality — and why has it managed to remain one for decades?
The granola personalty seems embedded within its crumbly, roof-of-the-mouth-splitting DNA — wherever you want to begin its story. Like other great inventions, its provenance is shrouded in dispute. A 2012 New York Times feature that asked "Who Made That Granola?" credits Dr. James Caleb Jackson, "a health reformer who believed illness was rooted in the stomach." Setting the template for future wellness influencers everywhere, Jackson's fascination with nutrition arose from his own history of poor health, and experiments with alternative practices.
