The Ridiculous Kinder Egg Ban

Does anyone remember Kinder Surprise Eggs?  Those chocolate eggs with a creamy lining and a toy inside?

The chocolate wasn't the best I've ever tasted and the concept is not new, but I certainly do miss those little buggers.  Sort of like toys in my cereal.  You didn't know what you'd get, but you knew you'd get an extra something to brighten your day.  

Like a fortune cookie, eating the outer part after you started playing with what came inside.  

"Kinder" is the German word for "children". Kinder is also the old fashioned word for children in Dutch.  Logic tells me that these eggs were made for children, but even as an adult, I liked to get them just to see what was inside.

Kinder eggs are not allowed into the United States because of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act prohibits embedding “non-nutritive items” in confections.

(that part makes me giggle)

Let's take a look at the FDA's standards on what's allowed in our chocolate (this is real):

Chocolate               

Insect filth

(AOAC 965.38)   Average is 60 or more insect fragments per 100 grams when 6 100-gram subsamples are examined

OR

Any 1 subsample contains 90 or more insect fragments

Rodent filth

(AOAC 965.38)   Average is 1 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams in 6 100-gram subsamples examined

OR

Any 1 subsample contains 3 or more rodent hairs

DEFECT SOURCE:  Insect fragments - post harvest and/or processing insect infestation, Rodent hair - post harvest and/or processing contamination with animal hair or excreta

Significance: Aesthetic

Aesthetic?  Aesthetic?!?  Because it looks bad if there's more???

US Consumer Product Safety Commission - recall of KinderEggs - 1997.  States (in part), “Some of the toys have small parts that present a serious choking and aspiration hazard to children under three years of age…  Ferrero said that it markets the product in other countries solely for children three and older and designs these toys to be assembled by older children.”  So the toys are specifically for over three, but were being recalled because the toys weren’t for under three.

(Kinder Eggs have the same warning as Legos)

A Florida woman & active duty military spouse started a petition years ago to Free the Egg.  #FREETHEEGG  (I can't believe I just hash-tagged)

She even got her tale mentioned in Food Network Magazine.

So if you miss Kinder Surprise Eggs or are just sick and tired of the government telling you what to do because you're too stupid to not eat and choke on a toy that is clearly labeled to be inside the chocolate egg....go sign the petition, write your Congressmen or Senators, any representative, but do something.  

If you're lazy like me, she has a form letter you can copy and paste to their email as well as links to find those that represent you.

Tell them you're sick and tired of being treated like an idiot and to give you your chocolate back!

Stand up, shout it, tell them we should be allowed to have chocolate from another country that has a cute toy surprise in it rather than bug parts and rat hair!

FYI:  The US Customs penalty for one ounce of marijuana is $500.  One ounce of cocaine or heroin is $1,000.  One Ferrero Kinder Surprise egg is $2,500.

What Was That Word?

How many of us have sat there and struggled to find that word.  It's on the tip of your tongue.  Starts with a...?  Sounds like...?  It's...  Something about...  Ugh!

Nope.  Nothing.  Drawing a blank.  It's a secret I don't want to keep.

I found myself at that road block this morning.  Struggling for nearly an hour searching the locked files in my brain, trying to open them just a crack for the slightest hint.  Google can't help when you don't know what you're looking for.

I ended up looking at funny Bigfoot memes and still don't know how I got there.

Is it age?  Lack of sleep?  What causes us to lose that one important little tidbit, just as you need it the most?

I could never go on Jeopardy.  I'd lock up like a mute and stand there with a blank stare the whole time.  "I'll take Answers That Elude me for $600, Alex."

This morning I must have had an out-of-body experience where I cleaved my skull open to physically look for the word because the massive pounding I suffered when I finally gave up was excrutiating.  And still I have nothing.

What's really bad is when you forget someone's name....as they are approaching you.  My husband says, "Hey, isn't that your friend?"  To which I reply, "Yeah, that's.......oh shit."

I can remember that Tonto's horse was named Scout, but I can't remember why I just walked into the kitchen.  I have a variety of post-its hung all over the house, stuck to my phone when I leave the house, on my computer monitor, the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator.

What really bothers me is when I go to write it down and forgot what I went to write.  Standing there with a pen in hand, poised over the paper.

I blame information overload.  When I was younger, we had to remember phone numbers of a select few.  Then it was phone numbers and one pin number.  Now?  I have to change my password every other week, and that's always fun.  

"Password must contain one capital letter, six symbols, five song titles, the meaning of life, the plot to The Great Gatsby, and a hug."  

Followed by my computer asking, "Do you want this computer to remember the password?"  Hell yeah.

Then I go to write it on a post-it (just in case) and forget what I created.

What's the bigger insult?  That you forget in the first place or that you remember at three a.m.?  How many nights have I woken up shouting random things?  I'd tell you, but I forgot.

"CHOCOLATE COSMOS!"

My husband is always confused, slightly afraid, and yet I feel so triumphant when it finally comes to me.  I feel empowered, like I just won a million dollars or.... wrestled a T-rex to the ground.

"STERNOCLEIDOMASTOID!"

It's like I've overcome Alzheimer's.  I finally beat it back and can remember things.  Not that I have the energy to write it down in the middle of the night.  Even if I did, I forgot to put a pad and pen by the bedside.

"MERVEILLEUX!"

My husband thinks I have Turrets Syndrome, but it only strikes in the middle of the night.  There's no point trying to explain why I shouted a random word since he wasn't in on the original struggle to search for it.  He wouldn't understand and yet I feel trying to enlighten him would only make waking him up worse, so I roll over and go back to sleep.  

Peacefully, of course, now that the war in my brain has been resolved.

He bought me a day planner so I'd remember things I had to do.  I forgot where I put it.  Really.

We all struggle with remembering things at one time or another, the proper spelling of a word, complex math equations, the name of someone you knew twenty years ago...

When I walk in a room and forget why I was there in the first place, then walk out and remember, then walk back in and forget again, it deserves a profane word.  Or two.  

Maybe six or seven while throwing something breakable!