Egg Ban

From the DW:

"The evil egg: Chile bans Kinder Surprise"

The South American country introduced one of the strictest food labeling laws in the world and the chocolate egg landed on the chopping block. Chile isn't the only country where the kid-targeted candy is prohibited.  No more surprises for children in Chile: A new law bans chocolate Kinder Surprise eggs, which contain a plastic container with a little figurine or toy inside. The restriction states that companies cannot promote food items high in sugar or fats with "commercial hooks." Since those hooks include "toys, accessories, incentives or other similar items," it's not just the little chocolate eggs that are banned, but also McDonald's original Happy Meals, which serve up a toy along with fries and Chicken McNuggets. "The Happy Meal as it is today, from a nutritional perspective, is not ‘happy'. It has excessive salt, sugar, and saturated fats," Tito Pizarro, the head of public policy at Chile's Health Ministry, told local radio AND. Ferrero, the company that makes the Kinder eggs and distributes them across the world, is allegedly considering to take legal action against the ban of their product. Customers aren't happy either. Chile's health ministry says that five of 10 children in the country are obese. One in three children under six is overweight. The United States has its own problems with obesity and Kinder Surprise Eggs are banned here, too - but for a different reason. In 1938, the US passed the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. In section 402 (d), it says that confectionary is deemed "adulterated" and not to be sold if it contains non-nutritive objects. The toy race cars or tiny hippo figurines inside the Kinder Surprise that children in other countries love so much are exactly what this act is talking about. Exceptions are only made for objects "of practical functional value to the confectionery product," which obviously does not apply to little toys called Happy Hippos. One worry is that children could choke on the toys. Once you see how the egg is set up, that seems somewhat unlikely. You have to peel back the wrapping to get to the chocolate egg, which easily splits into two halves. Inside is the hard-plastic capsule that contains the toy. The US does actually enforce its "No Kinder Surprise" policy. In 1997, a candy importer in Chicago recalled 5,000 Kinder eggs "in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)," according to the CPSC website. Anyone bringing the prohibited chocolate into the country, even tourists, can be fined up to 2,500 dollars (2,260 Euros) per egg. Some travelers are still willing to take the risk for friends or family in the US - and even joke about their illegal activities.

^ What's this world coming to when you ban the simple joy of a Kinder Egg? ^

http://www.dw.com/en/the-evil-egg-chile-bans-kinder-surprise/a-19362518