About Granola “Granula” was so christened by its inventor, James Caleb Jackson, who first created it in 1863, perhaps modeling it after the Swiss muesli. He named it after the Latin word for grain, granum. His recipe was adapted by John Harvey Kellogg some 13 years later and renamed granola in a twist of marketing genius. But Kellogg let the copyright of his invented word lapse as he focused more on his famous cornflakes so that now the term granola has become synonymous with a whole genre of dried cereals made with grains, nuts, and dried fruit. Making your own is fun.