Monday, October 01, 2012

There's a reason Canada is at the top of North America

kindersurprise

Annnnnnd it's not just geography.

Canada -- and countless other nations -- have a little bit of wonderful called Kinder Surprise, a huge (and I can't stress this enough - HUGE) plastic capsule containing a toy surprise (often parts and assembly instructions), which is then encased in a delicious, albeit thin, milk chocolate egg shell.

When the toy is assembled it might be a dinosaur with a waggly tail, a robot, a fist-sized spinning top, or even a hard plastic glider.

There are endless possibilities.

But the United States won't allow Kinder Surprise because of a 1938 law prohibiting the sale of candy with an embedded toy or trinket. In fact, the FDA recently re-issued its import alert on these delights because "non-nutritive objects in confectionary products pose a risk of choking."

To be sure, the law means well. People probably shouldn't bake small toys into candies, cakes and cookies without some kind of containing device that is too big to be ingested.

But if I were a kid today, I'd sharpen my pencil and write my representative to have this stupid law changed.

I'd much rather have easier access to toys and chocolate than guns and bullets.






1 comment:

Kelly Anne said...

I've had the pleasure of having Kinder Surprise eggs at a family wedding (not sure how they snuck them in, at such a high volume) when I was 13, and a few more when visiting Europe as an adult. The toys are in huge plastic eggs, and I don't think choking would be a hazard - shame they won't let them in.