i know it was first made in china by putting nuts and fruits in
a bowl with milk or water
The first ready-to-eat breakfast cereal was produced by Henry
Drushel Perky in Denver Colorado in 1893. Perky was a lawyer,
businessman, promoter and inventor. His cereal, Shredded Wheat, was
first sold locally in Denver and Colorado Springs.
Quote from a Wikipedia article about Henry Drushel Perky:
'Although John Harvey Kellogg and Charles William Post are better
known, Perky was a pioneer of the "cookless breakfast food" and it
was he who first mass produced and nationally distributed
ready-to-eat cereal.'
The first flaked cereal was Granose Flakes prepared by Dr. John
Harvey Kellogg in 1894, Superintendent of the Battle Creek
Sanitarium in Michigan, and announced in the February 1895 issue of
Food Health.
Corn flakes were first introduced in 1898 by Dr. Kellogg's
brother William Keith Kellogg and manufactured by the Sanitas Food
Co. of Battle Creek. (from The New Shell Book of Firsts).
There's a lot more to the Granose Flakes/Corn Flakes story and
how/why they were created.
