Kinder Surprise Blues

As mental health awareness month comes to a close I wanted to dedicate one more blog post to the topic. So in that spirit I want to tell you about a fantastic gem that used to bring me many smiles of wonderment and child-like fun: the Kinder Surprise Egg. I believe these gems originate from Germany but were sold all over the world to the delight of the young and the young at heart. Perhaps some of you are familiar with them yourselves.

For those of you who are not, the Kinder Surprise Egg is a hollow chocolate egg (a layer of milk chocolate on the outside and a layer of white chocolate on the inside. There is a seam that runs the lengthwise circumference that, when pushed on, cracks open to reveal a small plastic egg inside. The chocolate treat is good and all, but the real treat is the surprise inside the plastic egg. Inside each egg is an assembly required toy that often has moving parts. The toys are quite clever, intricate and amusing. I get a real kick out of how big and sophisticated some of them are considering all the parts were stuffed into such tiny plastic eggs.



I have a worm with wheels on the underside that when turned animate the head and tail of the as if the worm was actually creeping along. I also have a ladder that has two monkeys that, when released at the top, would climb down. Those two are my favorite but I really love all the toys I've collected over the past 6 years since I discovered them. The Kinder Surprise Eggs provide me with a real pick me up. Whenever I was having a particularly difficult day I would open one up and relish the simple pleasure of the surprise.



You can imagine my horror when shortly after moving to Virginia I learned that the FDA had decided the small toy parts inside this candy was a choking hazard to young children. While it certainly is a choking hazard so are many other toys. That's why you see age specifications on toys. We don't just ban all toys that are choking hazards. I can see how the argument could be made that having the toy in the candy makes it different. However, I can think of lots of candy that is dangerous for young children; like Taffy, Jolly Rancher, suckers and gum to name a few. It makes no sense to single out the Kinder Surprise Egg as dangerous to children and ban it from the country. I'm sad at the loss of this simple boost to my mental health, especially now when my both my physical and mental health are struggling.

Have you ladies ever had a Kinder Surprise Egg?