Cadwallader Washburn (1818-1882) was born one of seven kids on a hard-scrabble farm in Livermore, Maine. When he was ten, he was farmed-out to pay his family's way out of bankruptcy. Nevertheless OR therefore, he played a leading role in a remarkable family of American leaders -- Congressmen, a Secretary of State, ambassadors, governors -- and in C.C. Washburn's case, Food Disruptor.

He had a penchant for big operations, big risks, and other people's money.

Together with Oliver Evans and Cyrus McCormick, Washburn made white flour cheap and founded the Minneapolis company that became General Mills. He made a huge fortune and he wreaked grand-scale environmental damage as a capitalist.

In terms of American foodways, he lowered the cost of white bread for everybody and he, together with partner-in-pancreatic-crime Claus Spreckels (1828-1908), may have thrown the switch on the obesity and diabetes crisis we live with a century and a half later.