Obligatory disclaimer: I don’t eat a keto diet, so my palate is not hard-wired to seek out cereals like General Mills’ new Wonderworks trilogy. However, since it’s a new release from a big cereal manufacturer, I likewise feel obligated to give it a try. So while Wonderworks is in a totally different flav-o-sphere than the likes of Reese’s Puffs or Cocoa Puffs, I hope to at least give you an idea of which flavor is most worth a try.
Because, let’s make this clear, one of these three flavors is way better than the others.
Peanut Butter Wonderworks Cereal Review
Put simply, a keto diet consists of high fat, moderate protein, and low carbs. That’s quite different from regular, almost entirely carb-y cereals, and as such a keto-friendly cereal like Wonderworks differs from conventional cereals in every way, from taste to texture.
I think the texture here is most likely to throw people off. This sounds counterintuitive to Wonderworks’ low-carb status, but chewing a spoonful of this stuff is like gumming up a floury piece of bread dough. Sure, these puffs start crispy, but they quickly disintegrate into powdery, mealy slimishness that seems better served as caulking than anything edible. Granted, texture is always a challenge for “grown-up cereals,” but I think indie keto cereal companies like Magic Spoon do better about crafting textures that seem “homemade healthy” rather than mechanically synthesized, like Wonderworks’ slurry.
Can you tell Peanut Butter isn’t my favorite of the three flavors? And I haven’t even gotten to the taste: it’s pretty faint. There are definitely notes of dry-roasted peanuts and crackerjacks, but it’s lacking in both sweetness and oiliness—vital components to a naturally better PB flavor.
As will be a theme with all Wonderworks cereals, milk gives a brief boost to the sweetness and tames the troublesome texture, but these lightly infused puffs quickly become bland husks, and the milk left behind is unpleasant, as if it somehow has a matte finish.
The Bottom Line (coming from a non keto-er’s perspective): 2.5 grimacing gulps out of 10
Chocolate Wonderworks Cereal Review
Okay! The reason I was so harsh on Peanut Butter was because Chocolate is by far the most tolerable Wonderworks Cereal.
Sure, its texture is still less than ideal, and strangely, I found a couple totally white puffs devoid of flavor powder, but the cocoa flavor baked into these Wonderworks puffs is suitably rich and compliments the floury mouthfeel better than peanut butter. The semisweet cocoa powder—though lacking butteriness and darkness—will be familiar to fans of Cocoa Puffs, and all in all, this cereal is basically a softer, health-tuned interpretation of Sonny’s cuckoo-inducing fare.
Unless you’re vehemently anti-chocolate—and if that’s the case, I think you have bigger problems than finding a fitting keto cereal—Chocolate Wonderworks Cereal is your best chance at enjoying something from this line of mindful munchies. Just don’t expect the overwhelming sugar-smack you’d get from Krave, because this is more like tenderly tapping your taste buds with a lukewarm chopstick. Add chocolate almond milk for best results.
The Bottom Line (coming from a non keto-er’s perspective): 4.5 anti-chocolatier’s tears of 10
Cinnamon Wonderworks Cereal Review
Aaaand, saving the most tepid of the three for last, we have Cinnamon Wonderworks Cereal. I’m surprised I didn’t like this one more, because cinnamon is usually the easiest to thoroughly cook into even the most boringly based cereals, but something is just off here.
The cinnamon flavor is simply too earthen and spicy to be pleasing. Combine this with the cereal line’s less-than-palatable chew, and you’ve got a breakfast version of the infamous cinnamon challenge that Darwin’d itself out of existence years ago. Cinnamon may have many interpretations in the cereal aisle, from Toast Crunch to Cinnabon, but this stuff is just a weirdly alien amalgamation of cinnamon literalness. Even with milk, I couldn’t get past the notion that I was spooning it from right off my spice rack.
Overall, even with my alleged “sugar-spoiled” palate, I think Wonderworks Cereals miss the mark. Chocolate comes closest to earning its keep in your pantry, but at $6.99 a box, unless your keto diet is so prohibitively strict that you can’t deviate, you might as well spring for a premium, simply formulated cereal from the LäraBar line. Or better yet, support the keto-friendly likes of Magic Spoon and The Cereal School, so independent cereal startups stand a chance against behemoths like General Mills.
The Bottom Line: 2 notorious failures of the Saltine Challenge from my past out of 10
I bought this cereal 4/2/2024. It advertises on the box “Love it or it’s Free”. So I tried it, did not love it and found out the offer expired in 2023. How old is this cereal I just bought??
I bought the Chocolate and it was so nasty I couldn’t eat even 1 bowl. Taste like bits of cardboard. I wasted almost 8.00 and it’s going in the trash. Don’t bother with this cereal.
I thought I had been poisoned. The cereal is so bad that I had to google if there was a contamination recall and I came across this post with comments from a over a year ago that report same the chemical soap taste. It is soooo bad. I took a huge bite and first crunch thought, this is good, then a millisecond later the intense soap taste hit HARD. I thought I had a stroke. I gargled with mouthwash and then whiskey and I still can taste heavy duty industrial strength cleaner. Fighting the urge to vomit cause I don’t want the cereal to touch my tongue again the opposite way. I have been keto for 2 years and have never encountered anything so horrendous. I want to sue. This cinnamon one is BAD
agree this is the worst cereal ever. after a couple bites, it seemed like I had a mouthful of dust And the box had a money back guarantee but was past the offer expiration date–even though I just bought it!!!
Bad batch? I opened it fresh. It had six months left on it’s “best buy” date, but one attempt to chew the cinnamon one and I spat it out. It tasted like someone else’s vomit. No joke. It left that disgusting vomit flavor in my mouth for long afterward despite rinsing. Long afterward! Avoid this product like the stomach flu.
I found the box had more taste holy crap I can’t believe they actually had people taste test this buch of yes m’en and women
The Cinnamon cereal is terrible. It leaves my mouth tasting like vomit. I tried a few pieces straight out of the box and vomit was the first thing that came to mind. I thought maybe if I added milk it would be better, but NO it was the same. I couldn’t even swallow it. I had to spit it out. I like the Chocolate version and the Vanilla is Okay, but the Cinnamon is a definite NO GO. Might try to Peanut butter if they ever get it in here.
I bought the peanut butter cereal. It has a terrible immediate chemical aftertaste. Also caused intestinal gas.
I bought the peanut butter cereal. It has a terrible immediate chemical aftertaste. Also caused intestinal has.
I agree, the cinnamon is awful. It almost tastes like some kind of poison. I am now afraid to try the chocolate, as I bought it in a 2 pk from Sam’s Club. I have done Keto for years and have tried many products, but this one is the absolute worst!
I don’t understand all of the bad reviews. I am new to keto cereal but I really liked the peanut butter. I have not tried any other flavor yet but I think it is definitely worth giving the cereal a try. Looking forward to trying the chocolate next.
The Peanut Butter flavor seemed very bitter tasting, even burning my tongue after just tasting 4 or 5 pieces of it. I won’t buy this product again. Very disappointed.
Just ate a bowl of this. Wanted to review it to save others some money. I’d read another review elsewhere of this same cereal. They said it disintegrated in the milk. I didn’t have that experience. The texture was fine. But I didn’t taste any peanut butter. So, more than anything this cereal was a disappointment.
As someone who doesnt even eat cereal much and doing keto, I found this cereal to be incredible tasting and addictive. I had to stop myself from eating nonstop. At Sams club, you can get the chocolate and cinnamon combo for 10 dollars which I think is fair. It really helped with the sugar craving and I plan to buy this again as soon as I run out
For someone who has essentially been on a keto diet for nearly 5 years, I have found this cereal to be the closest to real cereal by far of all the keto cereal options, which are very few. Do not compare this cereal to cocoa puffs. But don’t compare any keto recipe to it’s highly sugared counterpart. In a world with so few options for keto cereal, this one is a winner.
At almost 7 dollars a box they should be ashamed to try to pass this stuff off as anything close to cereal! I unfortunately tried the peanut butter flavor, it was quite literally the most disappointing food I have ever ate. Each bite I forced myself to eat was a mouth full of sadness!
Me too it taste like cardboard gross
Purchased this for close to 7 dollars a box.
Tastes like you have a mouthful of sawdust. Actually giving it to the birds. Maybe they’ll tolerate it. If they’re desperate.
I just started dipping my toe into keto cereals, so the timing of this post couldn’t have been better. Shame it sounds like the cereal itself ain’t great though. Tangentially, I’ve been really enjoying the crisp texture of Schoolyard Snacks’ keto cereals.
Nice, I’ll be reviewing some Schoolyard Cereals pretty soon!
We got a box of the Cinnamon flavor from Walmart just to try. The first bite has a promising start, but after a few seconds the flavor begins to dissolve into something that mocks your taste buds.
About 10 seconds after you swallow your first bite the aftertaste kicks in. It finishes off like laundry detergent. It’s nasty, nasty.
But if you like crunchy laundry soap for breakfast, this may be your cup of tea. I would (generously) give it 1.0 out of 10.