Lucky Charms Marshmallows by the Bag

Lucky is a Great Mascot but Poor Dietician

In the 1980s every kid knew “frosted Lucky Charms are magically delicious,” but let’s face it — my friends and I loved Lucky Charms for five reasons: pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, and blue diamonds. Every child’s dream was to have a bowl full of those marshmallows without all that pesky cereal. Today, as an adult, our dreams have been answered.

This is a 13oz bag of Lucky Charms marshmallows, without the cereal. I purchased this bag back in 2020 because, well, lockdown sucked and sometimes you gotta treat yo’ self.

One might thing that these marshmallows would have a shelf life of decades, but the “best by” date was November of 2020, roughly six months after the purchase date. Included on the package was convenient nutrition information like “0g of Fiber” and “0g of Protein”. It is quite possible that the label itself contains more nutrition than the marshmallows. According to the packaging, a single serving of marshmallows contains 120 calories. That’s assuming a serving size of 30g, or approximately 1/2 cup. If that’s your idea of a serving size of magically delicious marshmallows, good on you.

A few years ago my wife and I spent six months only eating unprocessed foods. The rule of thumb in regards to unprocessed foods is, only eat things that either (a) don’t contain a list of ingredients, or (b) only include ingredients you recognize. Although I don’t recognize. The good news is, I recognize most of the ingredients listed on this package. The bad news is, they include things like “sugar”, “Dextrose”, “Gelatin”, and so on. It also contains “artificial flavor and natural flavor” which seems like a good thing. I also just noticed it contains, among other things, “Red #40,” which was recently banned in California due to a study that “found a potential link between red dye No. 40 and accelerated immune system tumor growth in mice. The dye also contains benzene, a known carcinogen.” To that I say, I highly doubt Lucky the Leprechaun would do anything to harm me so maybe they had better recheck those facts.

Listen. I’m not saying bowls full of marshmallows are a nutritional breakfast, or part of a nutritional breakfast, or even a good idea. All I’m saying is, it’s a pretty great world where you can have a pound of Lucky Charms marshmallows delivered directly to your porch with the click of a button. There are worse uses of technology.

In 2022 during a routine checkup my doctor did some bloodwork and determined that I was pre-diabetic. She asked if any of my eating or exercise habits had recently changed and if my life were a cartoon that’s when the above picture would have appeared in a thought bubble above my head. Like a good patient, I said “nope!” and, later that day when I got home, got rid of my remaining stash of marshmallows. And by “got rid of” I mean “gobbled by the fistful.” Who knew the prize at the bottom of these bags of marshmallows was a bottle of Metformin?

We had a short but good run. Like wishes and nostalgia, Lucky Charms marshmallows are magically delicious and also enjoyed in small(er) doses.