John Harvey Kellogg was born on February 26, 1852 in the small farming community of Tyrone, Michigan. His parents John Preston and Ann Stanley Kellogg converted to the Seventh-Day Adventist faith shortly after his birth. In 1853, wishing to raise their family in a religious environment, the Kelloggs moved to Jackson, Michigan where a small Adventist community was developing.

Three years later they settled in the larger Adventist community of Battle Creek, Michigan, where John Preston Kellogg established a small store and broom factory. In 1866 the Seventh-Day Adventist congregation in Battle Creek began the Western Health Reform Institute. This institute was established to care for the sick in harmony with the Adventist's newly accepted principles of healthful living. John Preston Kellogg's business ventures had helped to make him successful and he was able to invest five hundred dollars in the venture, making him the largest original stockholder. In 1869, after the Institute had suffered a series of financial difficulties, John Preston was appointed its treasurer. John Harvey occasionally served as his father's assistant, beginning his lifelong connection with the Institute.

John Harvey Kellogg was a sickly child who had little formal education until he started high school. Upon completion of his high school degree, he decided to become a teacher. Acting upon this desire, he enrolled in the teachers' training course at Michigan State Normal College in Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1872. However, in the fall of 1872 John Harvey was back in Battle Creek for a "family council". His family wanted him to attend Dr. Russell Trall's Hygieo-Therapeutic College in Florence Heights, New Jersey along with three other young men from the Church. John Harvey reluctantly agreed to their decision when it was explained to him that the Western Health Reform Institute was in need of trained doctors. Realizing this need, the church had decided to train and staff the Institute with young men from within the denomination.

Instruction at Dr. Trall's College emphasized the curative powers of water, a simple diet, exercise, and fresh air. Upon completion of the six month course, John Harvey was so interested in medicine that he continued his studies at the University Medical School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Sensing his natural affinity for medicine, John and Ellen White (two of the Adventist's who had started the Western Health Reform Institute) loaned John Harvey the money to further his education at the largest medical college in America, the Bellevue Hospital Medical School in New York. He attended Bellevue only one year before he qualified for his M.D. degree in 1875. In October of 1876, he took over as physician-in-chief of the Western Health Reform Institute.

In 1877 Kellogg decided that a change of name would improve the institution's public image. On his own initiative he renamed the Institute the Battle Creek Sanitarium. He also expanded on the initial premise of the Institute regarding cures without drugs. Actively experimenting with foods, he developed meat substitutes from various grains and nuts. His most widely known achievements were the development of peanut butter, granola, and the process for flaking grains. Additionally, he introduced the concept of regular exercise for maintaining good health.

The same year Kellogg organized the Sanitarium Food Company as a subsidiary of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. The Company was part of his plan to provide former patients as well as the general populace with healthful grain foods. Within twenty years the company had expanded and proved to be a substantial source of income for the Sanitarium. At the urging of an employee, W.S. Sadler, and with the help of his brother, William, John Harvey launched a new food production company.

This new company was known as the Sanitas Food Company and with it, Kellogg hoped to reach an even wider market for his health foods. His new flaked cereals and vegetable meats became the property of Sanitas. William had spent twenty-odd years in his brother's employ, working long hours to turn a profit. When he wanted to use the family name on some of the Sanitas products, the two argued. In 1906 William left his brother's company and formed the Toasted Corn Flake Company. Six months after the formation of William's new company, John Harvey decided to change the name of the Sanitas Food Company to the Kellogg Food Company. William had been urging him to make such a change for a number of years and John Harvey's sudden decision to do so angered his brother. As his product was marketed under the name of Kellogg's Toasted Corn Flakes, William believed that the name change took advantage of the several hundred thousand dollars his Toasted Corn Flake Company had expended in advertising the Kellogg.

The brothers' feud eventually lead to lengthy litigation on two separate occasions. These long court battles created an estrangement between them which never completely healed. After the last hearing, John Harvey decided to change the name of his company to the Battle Creek Food Company. This occurred in the spring of 1917 and the change ended his legal difficulties with William's manufacturing interests, although it did not heal the rift between them.

In addition to his advances in health reform and health foods, John Harvey Kellogg was also an innovator of surgical procedure. He brought European practices to the United States and improved them by his own ingenuity. Using one such procedure involving abdominal surgery, Kellogg was able to significantly reduce the mortality rate for this type of operation.

John Harvey Kellogg's parents were fervent Seventh-Day Adventists and they passed their beliefs along to all their children. Maintaining his ties with the church into adulthood, Kellogg held numerous positions of trust and leadership within the Adventist organizational structure for over thirty years. At the same time, he was often viewed as a controversial, even abrasive, member of the congregation. Outspoken in his views, his magnetic personal appeal to younger members of the church and his personal interpretation of Adventist theology (culminating in the publication of his book The Living Temple) caused the Adventist leaders to fear his growing power. The final break between Kellogg and the church occurred in 1907, just before his difficulties with William began.

Although a third of his life lay ahead of him, John Harvey's days of real creativity were past. He continued with his busy schedule in the Sanitarium and worked on other personal projects, but was only able to maintain a strained relationship with his brother and the Church. On December 14, 1943, after suffering an acute attack of bronchitis, John Harvey Kellogg died at the age of 91. For further biographical information, see Richard W. Schwarz's book, John Harvey Kellogg.