According to Kellogg, allowing women to enjoy spicy or even just flavorful foods was fraught with dangers both medical and moral: “Candies, spices, cinnamon, cloves, peppermint, and all strong essences, powerfully excite the genital organs and lead to the same result,” he wrote in the 1880s. The ominous “result,” of course, was masturbation, an act with which Kellogg was particularly obsessed.
