I have made a great discovery. Believe it or not, I have discovered a Kashi brand cereal that is actually edible.

I’m not a big fan of cold cereal in general. Those I do like are mostly crunchy-fruity-nutty “natural” type cereals with few if any flakes. I often try new ones on the chance that I might find something unusually good. I think it was sometime last year that I tried Kashi Go Lean Crunch. It is not crunchy; it is hard – so hard that it is almost inedible by anyone other than that guy with the metal teeth in the James Bond movie (Moonraker?) and it doesn’t taste anywhere near good enough to risk breaking a tooth on. If you did a blind taste test comparing a bowl of Kashi Go Lean Crunch with a bowl of hardwood mulch and the tester asked you, “Which one is a real breakfast cereal?” you would say, “You’re kidding! One of those is supposed to be a breakfast cereal?”

I also tried some kind of Kashi hot cereal this past winter. No mulch in that one but it didn’t taste any better so I swore off Kashi cereals. Until I saw the Kashi Cocoa Beach cereal. I first noticed it about two weeks ago and passed it up, thinking it would probably be nothing but chocolate flavored mulch. But, well, it’s chocolate. Next time I went to the store I took a closer look. The box has a little window in the front so you can see the cereal inside. It looks like normal granola, coated with chocolate flavor and pieces of almond and flakes of coconut. It at least looked edible so I decided to take a chance on it.

It was the right decision. This is one of the greatest inventions in cereal history. Okay, honestly, it’s not all that great but it is very good. Crunchy and textured, not hard. Sweet but not excessively sweet. Finally, a chocolate cereal for grown-ups. I suppose I’m going to have to stop making fun of Kashi every time I see one of their commercials.