Kinder Eggs

Living in Germany as a kid, one of the coolest things I found in this not-very-cool country was the Kinder Egg -- aka Kinder Surprise. For the uninitiated they are basically eggs with a thin milk chocolate crust and little toys inside. I think they currently cost around 1 euro -- they were 1 Deutschmark at the time I lived there. I've always wondered why you couldn't buy them here in the U.S. -- well now I know.

Last night I was talking to a German girl who is interning with some German food trade group and she said that it's because they violate FDA regulations. This is confirmed by answer.com:

They are sold all over the world; an exception is the United States where the Food and Drug Administration has banned the toys, due to safety concerns and regulations against non-food products within a food shell.

Of course the fact that literally millions of European children have eaten these candies without incident has probably gone over the FDA's head. Or, who knows, maybe they just figured that American kids aren't as smart as German kids and are more likely to eat the toys.