- Joined
- Oct 16, 2012
- Messages
- 18,045
- Reaction score
- 9,304
- Location
- Fareham, Hampshire UK
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 6
Not in the least bit hypocritical Will ...how can you accept that 'honey' that may come from China, adulterated with God knows what can and processed to extinction can be termed in the same vein as your hand produced, artisanal superior product ? This is an argument amongst beekeepers - it's not and never has been a public debate. Ask your customers, without prompting, to give you an adjective that describes what they consider your honey to be ... you may be surprised.Your penultimate sentence is basically 'other people shouldn't force me to change to the way that suits them and if they don't like it they should change to the way that suits me.'
Somewhat hypocritical IMO.
Honey regs are clear as to what constitutes honey and the concept of 'raw' is implicit. The issue is no-one is enforcing the labelling of baker's honey on heated honey and the various documents circulating about how to reliquify honey at various temperatures makes it worse. Raw is a superfluous word which aims to improve the user's sales by implicitly maligning any other honey not sold as raw. People can play linguistic twister as much as they like to try and justify it but I doubt they're even convincing themselves- it's all about profit. As has been pointed out in numerous other debates on here and is evidenced by this case, make use of raw common and the big corps. will start using it then another word will be needed and in time we'll need a full sentence to make honey stand out when 'honey' should be enough. My view is that use of raw is both foolish and selfish.
Personally, I'm liberal minded - until such time as there is a clear distinction in the approved labelling between the honey that we beekeepers produce and some of the stuff purveyed as honey then I'm happy to see people who feed the need to use the term raw to continue to do so. Those who don't are equally at liberty to continue as they do .. live and let live.
Sorry, I don't subscribe to some of the 'thin end of the wedge' theories that have been put forward in the various debates on here.
Just to add one comment to your suggestion that I am hyprocritical ... I wonder how many of those crying about raw breaking the honey labelling regulation are quite happy to flaunt the VMD regulations and treat their bees with generic OA by sublimation ? Hypocritical or what - kettle calling saucepan black ...