Another Holiday without Kinder Eggs

What can Mexican, Canadian, Kenyan, and most other children of the world have that U.S. children cannot have?  The answer is especially painful this time of year:  Kinder Eggs.  Of course, U.S. children cannot have Kinder Eggs any time of the year, holidays notwithstanding.  And thus, children living in the United States are being deprived of a global experience.

A Kinder Egg is a chocolate treat with a small toy embedded inside.  With European origins, produced, I believe, in Germany, Italy, and Austria, and with European processes, the chocolate is outstanding, but it is that little embedded toy that constitutes the Great Satan to U.S. authorities.

The toy is considered to be a “non-nutritive object” and therefore, it is illegal by U.S. law.  In fact, legal justification for such classifications and resultant policy actions may be found in the 1938 Food and Drug Act.   Besides containing a “non-nutritive object”, consumer advocates point out there is a real danger of children choking on the toy.

What is it about children in the U.S. that makes them excessively prone to choking on small toys?  U.S. children share about 10,000 miles of borders, north and south, with Canadian and Mexican children who, evidently, are not prone to excessive choking.  In fact, it appears that only children in the U.S. choke on small toys and must be protected.  The rest of the world has decided that the product is safe and that their children do not choke on things as readily as U.S. children.  So what is it about our children that make them so different in the proposed consumption of chocolate eggs?

If you travel to Europe, do not even think about bringing Kinder Eggs back with you.  Your fine for the attempted smuggling of Kinder Eggs could range up to $25,000.  That is serious.  You might as well try to smuggle an AK assault rifle into the country, given the consequences.

25,000 to 35,000 Kinder Eggs are seized at U.S. ports every year.  This impressive intercept activity no doubt protects our children from dangers associated with the flagitious degenerates in Big Chocolate. 

It seems like we are getting so adept at seizing Kinder Eggs that it might be time to figure out ways that we could drop Kinder Eggs into the pockets of suspected terrorists seeking to come to this country.  Or into containers of “knock off” electronics hoping to escape the attention of port enforcement officials.  Being associated with a Kinder Egg in a border area is not a good thing.  I wonder if, in our War on Kinder Eggs, we have stopped to think how such a dreaded product could possibly be our friend and ally.  Flooding our enemies and potential lawbreakers with Kinder Eggs just might be the missing strategy to fix all our unfair trade and immigration problems.

By the way, what is a little regulation, without strange anomalies?  Choco Treasures and King’s Cake contain “non-nutritive” products, but somehow escape the official stigma cast upon the poor Kinder Egg.

What do you think will happen when they find out about fortune cookies?