Nutritionist worked on Cap’n Crunch and Life cereals

Robert O. Nesheim, a nutritionist with Quaker Oats who helped oversee the development of brands including Cap’n Crunch and Life cereals and later served on a committee that studied nutritional guidelines for the military, has died. He was 86.

Nesheim had prostate cancer for several years and died July 19 in a Monterey retirement home, his daughter Sandra Rankin said.

He worked out of the Quaker Oats research facility in Barrington, Ill., for most of his career with the company, from 1952 to 1983, his daughter said.

He briefly taught at his alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the mid-1960s.

As a vice president for research and development, he maintained the nutritional guidelines for new Quaker products and oversaw teams that came up with new products and brands.

“Given his background as a nutritionist, he wanted food that tasted good and sold well, of course, but also was as healthy as possible,” Rankin said.

Nesheim regularly represented Quaker’s interests when politicians and governmental entities raised questions about health and nutrition, former company president Frank Morgan said.

“He was our guy in Washington dealing with issues of health,” he said.

Nesheim also worked in the science and technology area, studying food safety issues, his daughter said.

After leaving Quaker in 1983, he joined Avadyne Inc. in California and helped develop products for the healthcare industry.

From 1983 to 1998, he was on a committee that developed nutritional guidelines for the military.

Nesheim was born in 1921, grew up on a farm near Monroe Center, Ill., and studied agriculture at the University of Illinois. He served in the Army from 1943 to 1946.

After World War II, he received a master’s degree in animal science and a doctorate in nutrition and animal science, both from Illinois.

Last year, Nesheim created an endowment in nutrition at Illinois’ graduate school of agriculture, consumer and environmental sciences.

Morgan described Nesheim as a “health nut” who regularly jogged and walked.

Rankin said her father ate oatmeal every day but wasn’t preachy on matters of nutrition: “He thought people should eat sensibly, but he wasn’t a fanatic about it.”

Nesheim was divorced from his first wife, Emogene. His second wife, Doris Calloway, died in 2000.

Besides his daughter Sandra, he is survived by daughter Barbara Mowry; a stepson, David Calloway; a stepdaughter, Candace Whiting; two brothers; four sisters; nine grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.