This Protein-Packed Cereal Still Somehow Manages to Taste Like Your Childhood

Cereal is one of those foods that makes everything better. Bad mood? Grab a bowl of cereal. Want a late-night snack? Grab a bowl of cereal. Hungover? Grab a bowl of cereal. As you can tell, we’re cereal fanatics — especially because preparing a bowl requires zero cooking skills.

Our latest cereal obsession? Magic Spoon. You may be wondering why we’re hype about cereal, but Magic Spoon isn’t your regular-degular cereal, folks. It’s high in protein, has zero grams of sugar, and is grain- and gluten-free, but looks just like the bowl of Os you’ve been eating for years.

Magic Spoon cofounders Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz tell POPSUGAR they “grew up loving cereal, like most kids do.” Then, as they started to pay more attention to nutrition and what they eat, they realized that cereal is “mostly just a box of sugar.” And they’re right: cereal contains an average of eight grams of sugar per serving, according to a study by the Environmental Working Group. That’s about a third of the daily sugar recommendation for adult women and almost a quarter of the recommendation for adult men, according to the American Heart Association.

“So we thought, ‘What if you could actually re-create the taste and texture of all those sugary cereals and make it. . . high-protein, low-carb, zero-sugar, gluten-free, grain-free, like, ticking every nutritional box?'” Lewis says. After some experimenting in the kitchen followed by taste tests from friends and family members, Lewis and Sewitz came up with the current ingredient blend. The cereal became such a hit, Magic Spoon even launched cereal bars in February 2022.

Now carbs and sugar aren’t evil, but if you’re watching your intake, are gluten-free, or just want more protein in your breakfast, then this could be a great cereal to try. Curious? Here’s the scoop.

Magic Spoon Nutrition Facts and Flavors

A one-cup serving of Magic Spoon has 13 to 14 grams of protein, one to two grams of fiber, and three grams of net carbs. (Reminder: net carbs are the number of carbs in a food minus any carbs from fiber and sugar alcohols, since those won’t affect your blood sugar.) For reference, one cup of generic bran flakes has only four grams of protein, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

Magic Spoon cereals are also keto-friendly (thanks to their low net carb count), gluten-free, and grain-free. If that doesn’t have you ready to give it a shot, it’s also free of cane sugar, corn syrup, and sugar alcohols. (The one thing it isn’t? Vegan.)

Despite being nutritionally very different from your typical cereal, the taste will still satisfy your craving for something light, crunchy, and sweet. In fact, Magic Spoon’s flavors are designed to take you straight back to your favorite cereals from childhood; the brand debuted in 2019 with four flavors — fruity, frosted, cocoa, and cinnamon roll — and has since expanded to include peanut butter, maple waffle, cookies and cream, and blueberry muffin as well. It also releases one or two limited-edition flavors every six weeks, Lewis says, such as birthday cake and pumpkin chai.

How, exactly, does it make a cereal that tastes so good while being so high in protein and sugar-, gluten-, and grain-free? Well, Magic Spoon is made of the following base:

• Milk Protein Blend: Whey protein concentrate and casein (the main protein in milk)
• Sweetener Blend: Monk fruit and allulose (a sugar found in certain fruits, including figs, jackfruit, and raisins)
• Oil Blend: Sunflower and peanut oil
• Tapioca Starch: Made from cassava, a starchy root that’s gluten-free
• Chicory Root Inulin: A prebiotic fiber (prebiotics act as food for the good bacteria in your gut.)

Magic Spoon creates its flavors using, for example, peanut flour and extract (for the peanut-butter flavor), cocoa powder (in the cocoa flavor), and cinnamon (in the cinnamon-roll flavor). To add color, they use vegetable juice, turmeric extract, and spirulina. The brand promises to “never use any artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives,” per the website.

“The biggest thing we try to accomplish is to make you feel like a kid again,” Lewis says. “So our goal as a company is to create delicious nostalgic breakfast foods that don’t involve any compromise.”

That kids’-cereal vibe goes beyond the taste, too. On the back of each colorful box is a puzzle that you can play to reignite your inner child while you’re chewing on Magic Spoon. “We wanted to nod to kids’ cereal, and so we’ve created this line of characters that are slightly grown up, even slightly psychedelic versions of classic cereal box characters,” Lewis says. “We wanted to put it in a box to sort of evoke that feeling of childhood nostalgia.”

Where to Buy Magic Spoon

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to pick up a box from your favorite grocery store. Instead, you can order a Magic Spoon Variety Box ($39 for four boxes), a Build Your Own Box ($39 for four boxes or $54 for six), or any four-pack of one type of cereal for $39 on the brand’s website or Amazon. If you’re on the fence, the Magic Spoon website says you can try it risk-free, “100-percent happiness guaranteed.”