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.