Review: Lucky Charms Marshmallows Only Cereal

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Whether it’s an engagement ring, the One Ring to rule them all, or that darn videotape from The Ring, every so often an object enters your life and changes it forever.

For me, this object wasn’t a ring, but receiving it did make my mouth form into a perfectly round, gasping ring. That’s right: it’s a box of Marshmallows Only Lucky Charms. One of only 10 in existence.

Alright, alright. I should back up a bit. Let’s Tarantino this story before I tear into this mythic box.

Back in October of 2015, General Mills announced a groundbreaking contest. Kids and adults alike have been separating the oats from the marshmallows in Lucky Charms for decades, but now General Mills was cutting out the middle man by giving away ten—count ’em—ten (10) boxes of just marshmallows! 

The official video they made for the sweepstakes, featuring a self-parody by Biz Markie, has since been taken offline, but if you look hard enough, you should still be able to find it.

I entered—all you had to do was submit pictures of yourself with a pretend box of Marshmallows Only. But of course, with thousands of entrants, I had better odds of getting my Selfie Spoon struck by lightning than actually winning. I pouted for months.

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That is, until I received a cryptic package from Gabe Fonseca, a long-time friend of Cerealously and fellow cereal die-hard. Naturally, upon opening it I fainted, knocked my head, and had little cartoon marshmallows spinning around my dazed noggin (this didn’t happen, but please imagine it did for dramatic effect).

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There it was, bathed in a charming sea of rainbow tissue paper.

After several fervent ALL CAPS Twitter messages, I found out that Gabe had managed to procure not just one, but three of the 10 Marshmallows Only boxes.

https://twitter.com/MrGabeFonseca/status/693208886082277376

And since anyone who’s seen an ’80s cartoon knows that having too many powerful talismans can corrupt a man or open some demonic portal, Gabe saw fit to distribute the power of the boxes (or at least that’s what I’m pretending he did). Always altruistic, Gabe sent the third box to General Mills’ cereal archive to be preserved for all time.

Gabe already did a great video on the cereal, but I figured I’d take a look at it, too. Just in case future high schools need photos for their Cereal History textbooks.

As you saw above, the box is colorful, and it twinkles with little holographic marshmallows all over its surface. Not surprisingly, the nutrition facts reveal that *gasp* a cereal that’s 76.6% sugar isn’t exactly good for you.

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But it is good for your soul, so I needed to munch some. The box was sealed very tightly, and as I carefully cracked it open, it practically begged for me to leave it sealed in mint condition forever. But Cereal History demanded that I stuff my cheeks with rainbow sugar nuggets, so I pressed on.

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Yes, you’re seeing that right; the back of the box has no games, while the bag inside is sturdy and opaque instead of transparent. As I dissected the bag, the smell of pure, dreamy bliss greeted me like a million nuzzles to the nose.

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The gang’s all here.

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I steadied my quivering, excited hands and poured a bowl. What photos cannot show is the wonderful mist of white powder that the box coughs up when you touch it. This thing was practically an edible blackboard eraser; just look at the inside of the bag.

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As expected, eating a spoonful of Marshmallows Only is quite a cloying sugar rush. I think I melted a molar just looking at it.

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The experience is different than just separating marshmallows from normal Lucky Charms, because these marshmallows are untainted by even the faintest crumb of oat dust. With Heisenberg levels of purity, it’s unadulterated, chalky, chewy, and vanilla granulated overload, baby.

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So logically, I amped up the sugar factor more by adding milk. Within moments, the marbits became mushy and the milk turned to an iridescent, hallucinogenic hue.

I ate a mouthful and the sopping, creamy mouthful of corn syrupy and grainy goop made my head spin. Sipping the milk was like drinking the liquefied essence of the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams are Made of This” music video.

The milk’s color slowly became sinister green swamp water, and ghost leprechauns laughed in my head in a slot machine formation. I did fifty jumping jacks, filed my taxes, and typed up this whole review at a WPM speed that matched my heart’s BPM, allwithouteventouchingthespacebar.

(Editor’s note: spaces were added during revision.)

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All in all, the taste and mental effect of Lucky Charms Marshmallows Only take a backseat to the simple experience of owning and exploring the cereal. I must give endless thanks again to Gabe for sending me this unforgettable gift, and to General Mills for doing such a cool promotion.

It’s been possible to buy “cereal marshmallows” in bulk for a long time, but it tastes so much sweeter when it’s an official part of cereal canon. I can only hope more cool things like Marshmallows Only are coming in the future.

Chocolate Chips Only Cookie Crisp, anyone?


 

The Bowl: Lucky Charms Marshmallows Only

The Breakdown: It’s a trippy bowl of Roy G. Biv dextrose niblets. In layman’s terms: it’s really, really sweet.

The Bottom Line (Flavor): 6 corn starch fever dreams out of 10

The Bottom Line (Nutrition): 1 puréed ’80s music video out of 10

The Bottom Line (overall): 10 priceless contributions to Cereal History out of 10

12 responses »

  1. Is it ok if I use this review as a source for a project I am doing in my health class? I need to compare healthy foods versus unhealthy, and this would be a great source. Is that okay?

  2. My mom won a trippy-colored box of 🍀 Lucky Charms All Marshmallows along w/its’ HELLO message poster and she gave them to me for Christmas. I was ecstatic! 🍀 I can’t bring myself to open them. Someone already has a box on eBay selling for $5,000!! 🍀 One box has already sold on eBay’ s Auction for over $500! I’m sure I’ll be listing my box soon. 🍀 After all – “Frosted Lucky Charms, they’re magically delicious!” 🍀 The marshmallows will hopefully be LUCKY for me, as I’ve just lost my job & could REALLY use this LUCK to help w/the mortgage! 🍀

  3. Actually… If you search Amazon with keywords lucky charms marshmallows, you’ll find they have been sold by the bag (not the spiffy box, love the nutritional info) for quite a while. They’ve been on my wish list for ages. They seem to be authentic as far as I can tell from the comments. People love adding them to other cereals. And yes, the marshmallows are the best part and I do save them for last. The cereal is pretty good, too, though. I just look for sales and stock up!

    • Yeah, I’ve seen those bags on Amazon; like I mentioned in the review, I personally prefer the authenticity and pizzaz that comes with official Lucky Charms co-branding.

  4. The marshmallows in Lucky Charms are more like a condiment.

    Eating them without the oats is like eating ketchup, mustard, or sugar without anything else.

    It tastes good for one serving. After that, it becomes impossible to eat.

    • finally someone with sense!
      Since years i’m trying to argue and tell people, that lucky charms “charm” (yay! what a pun! ;)) is all about the perfect combination of sweetened oat cereal AND the marshmallows and not of one component alone.

      I love the condiment analogy! It’s point on and i never could’ve explained better what i meant the whole the time! Thank! 🙂

  5. OMG!
    First things first: I’m sooooooooo happy for you, you had the almost non existing chance to eat “Lucky Charm’s Pot o’ Gold – All Marshmallows” 🙂
    Gabe is an amazing friend! 🙂
    (And hey after i was finally able to close my mouth again, after reading the topic in my feeds, i know it had to be Gabe who sent you the cereals. Though i really thought he sent you the opened box from his video, since i wasn’t aware of the fact, that he was already able to secure 3 boxes of this amazing treasure! :))

    I read the topic while i was at my girlfriends and had no internet so i saved the review for today, made myself a rare (at least for me here in germany) bowl of lucky charms and enjoyed the happiness you felt and put into the writing of this review. 🙂

    I really love Lucky Charms, though it’s probably one (if not THE) of the sweetest cereals i ever ate (You know we don’t have that much, NONE, Cereals with marshmallows here ^^), but i think the combination of sweetened oats Marshmallows is what makes it so awesome. Never had the urge to just try the marshmallows without the oat pieces. Is it really that good? I can imagine (and you somehow wrote that) it’s waaaay too sweet, at least for me. xD

    btw are the Lucky CHamrs GM Marshmallow very diferent from other Marshmallows in Cereals? (Like the ones we always see when another movie or cartoon needs promotion or the amrshmallow only bags you can buy)

    And last but not least: Thanks for the laugh at the end! The image of a bowl of “Chocolate Chips Only C(r)ookie Crisp” is hilarious xD
    Though i would rather go with “Really Bad Apple Jacks – Who needs CinnaMon!” 😉

    • Gabe! You’re an awesome guy and an even more awesome friend! (Not that i already know that, since you took a lot of effort and expenses and really sent me my prizes. Crookie Crisp! ftw! ^^; Thanks again btw!)

      Wasn’t aware of the fact that you were able to secure 3! marshmallow only boxes! Are you hunting them down and buy them or is it more like with the first box, which you got through “donation”? 🙂

    • Glad you enjoyed me enjoying them, haha. Now it’s time to eat a handful every morning to keep my good luck up. That’s how it works, right?

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