Breakfast cereal market. In China, porridges such as rice congee, or those made with other ingredients (including corn meal or millet) are often eaten for breakfast. Eating breakfast cereal has become more important in China and specifically Hong Kong, China due to the increase of work and decrease in time. In Greece, cornmeal is poured into boiling milk to create a cereal of a thick consistency which is often served to young children. The cereal production in Greece has recently declined. Ireland is known for its oatmeal. The most famous variety of these is steel-cut oatmeal. Oatmeal is very popular in Ireland,
Breakfast cereal had to be cooked and as a result of this convenience (and clever marketing), they became popular. Battle Creek, Michigan was a center both of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and of innovation in the ready-to-eat cereal industry. And indeed, the church had a substantial impact on the development of cereal goods through the person of John Harvey Kellogg (1851–1943). Son of an Adventist factory owner in Battle Creek, Kellogg was encouraged by his church to train in medicine at Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City in 1875. After graduating, he became medical superintendent at the Western Health Reform