Even more than the literal likes of “Waffle Crisp,” “Raisin Bran,” and “Honey Bunches of Oats,” Ghost Cereal may be the most aptly named cereal of all time.

Why? Because it tastes like the ephemeral phantom of an actual cereal.

Okay, I realize that sounds harsh, but you have to (and probably already do) understand something: I’m a cereal reviewer. I like sugary, sweet, grainy things. So when General Mills sent me a two-pack of Ghost Protein Cereal to try, they had to know that I wasn’t exactly the target audience…right?

Sure, I go to the gym, and sure, I like eating protein—but I typically do the latter in the form of mercury-poisoningly high doses of canned tuna, not cereals alchemically crafted from solidified milk protein. Which is all to say that my opinions on Ghost Protein Cereal probably won’t matter to fans of “normal” cereal (who weren’t gonna by this stuff anyway), nor will they be at all helpful to bodybuilders (who are seeking the perspective of someone who’s building a body not powered by cinnamon, toast, and crunch).

Which is all all to say that you should probably just stop reading here, for what’s to come will be mere semantic noise. Feel free to just turn on a dusty old box fan to get the same effect.

Oh wow, you’re still here? Fine, guess I owe you a proper review.

The first Ghost Protein Cereal flavor I tried is catchily named “with Marshmallows.” And it is, indeed, a cereal with marshmallows(!)

What’s immediately clear about this cereal—and any other cereal made from milk protein isolate—is that it really does taste like crunchy, solidified milk. And I don’t know about you, but “milk is the cereal” isn’t exactly appealing to me. I mean, that’s what milk’s for! Cereal has to have some sort of hearty grain base, and since I don’t have any toasted buckwheat beverage to pour on this Ghost Cereal, the whole thing just ends up tasting like…very little…other than…y’know…milk.

Sure, it’s sweetened up, and the marshmallows add another shallow dimension of sugary flavor, but all in all “Ghost Protein Cereal with Marshmallows” is quite bland—and I haven’t even mentioned the texture, yet. See, another thing common to milk protein cereals is that you have to chew them for a long, long time. Longer than you’d think, and much longer than you’d like. By the time these things are swallow-able, they’ve devolved into the kind of slimy, slightly gritty slurry they make McNuggets out of. Not ideal, but hey, that’s the cost of gains, I guess.

Overall? I’m over it already.

The Bottom Line: 2 states of milky matter out of 10

I’m pleased to say that PB Ghost Protein Cereal is multitudes better than “with Marshmallows.” Which, granted, isn’t saying much, because drinking gasoline is technically multitudes better than drinking bleach, but hey: improvement is improvement.

And PB Ghost Cereal’s key improvement is that it actually has a flavor. A decently toasted, slightly salty peanut butter one. It’s a bit less sweet than Reese’s Puffs, yet more caramelized than Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch.

So it’s unique in the realm of peanut butter cereals, but this quirky taste still can’t fully make up for all those aforementioned textural hang-ups. At the end of the day, there’s still gonna be waxy sludge in your mouth—but now it’ll at least taste a bit more pleasant.

I won’t lie, in this world of unbearably synthetic Magic Spoon and Mouth Off cereals, PB Ghost Protein Cereal rises above the rest by at least being palatable. If you’re genuinely looking for a protein cereal you’ll be able to stomach, you could do a whole lot worse than PB Ghost Protein Cereal.

Hey—maybe that was helpful to bodybuilders, after all! Can I keep my lunch money now?

The Bottom Line: 5 quirked-up Cap’ns out of 10