I was permanently banned from the Reddit sub without recourse for posting this despite not breaking any rules. I’m slowly making the migration over thanks to such encouragement.
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They say on the bottle that it’s a blend so I don’t think this is that infuriating. Though if I saw “Texas Honey Blend” I’d assume it’s cut with crude oil.
Welcome to the Fediverse!
It’s a blend of honey and high fructose corn syrup, what in the ever living fuck is high fructose corn syrup doing in honey? Oh, making more profits by cutting it.
Death to high fructose corn syrup
I can see it being useful if you’re making candy. Different sugars crystallize differently, so it’s not uncommon to mix corn syrup and sugar to get the right ratio.
But they’re also making “pancake syrup” that is corn syrup dyed and flavored to approximate maple syrup which is a crime against nature.
If you’re mixing things up in the kitchen, typically you try to be somewhat precise with ratios.
The difference in this case being that because the actual ratio of the blend is unknown, you don’t actually know how it would crystallize. Technically they could even change up the ratio week to week based on the price of high-fructose corn syrup so you wouldn’t even get consistency from it.
Even brands like log cabin who claim to use “no high fructose corn syrup” are just corn syrup and sugar. There are people who go their entire lives eating pancake syrup and table syrup on their pancakes, and die never having tasted actual maple syrup.
I can see it being useful if you’re making candy. Different sugars crystallize differently, so it’s not uncommon to mix corn syrup and sugar to get the right ratio.
Nobody making candy would every use this pre-blended product; they’d want to combine the two different sugars themselves so they could control the ratio.
Yeah, I was commenting on the notion of mixing honey with corn syrup generally, not this shit.
Though I’m sure there’s a bunch of old ladies in Texas who have recipes on old, yellowed card stock that call for this.
Isn’t that what the cheap syrup has always been? IHOP basically built their whole company on it.
Hot take, but it’s not a bad technology. It’s just heavily overused because US farm subsidies.
Eh, too much fructose and your body stops processing it. Fructose doesn’t actually trigger your body to use it, and if you don’t have enough other sugars present, it causes problems. Not an issue in moderation, but high-fructose syrup is used in so many things that it’s a real concern.
TIL. It sounds like there’s some debate about the severity of that, from what I can see, but it is a thing.
Yeah, just about any diet will have enough other carbs to work, but if all you eat is white bread and pepsi, that will be another issue with your diet.
What in the hell? You think this is ok? A honey blend implies a blend of…wait for it… different HONEY.
Not a blend of super cheap and super unhealthy syrup.
It seems not to be as well known as I thought, but most commercial honey sold in the US is not actually honey:
But the honey industry is hiding a secret. There’s a high chance that your store-bought honey is fake. While fake honey usually includes some amount of real honey, it is often mixed with other corn, rice, or sugar cane syrup to reduce its cost. These fillers are far cheaper than raw honey and are used to produce more honey, quicker. In fact, up to 76% of honey sold in the US is not really honey, at least not entirely.
There were a bunch of stories about this several years ago after a minor controversy, but it didn’t stay in the news long, so I guess it fell out of public consciousness.
If you want real honey, you’ll want to buy from small, local dealers.
If it was a bunch of different honeys they would have listed the types on the front of the bottle, I’m sure. The word “Texas” heavily implies that it’s made out of something terrible.
I have news for you if you think there is a health difference between a teaspoon of corn syrup and a teaspoon of honey. They are both packed full of sugar
You are being downvoted but HFCS and honey are almost exactly chemically identical. They have to inspect honey farms to make sure it comes from bees since looking at the final product you can’t tell the difference.
Yeah they are both concentrated sugar extracts. Just because one is made by bees doesn’t make it suddenly not a heaping tablespoon of sugar you’ve just ingested. I eat plenty of honey and molasses but I don’t lie to myself and claim that they are any healthier than corn syrup or simple syrup. They are all just super concentrated fructose and glucose solutions.
I thought the “benefits” to honey were kinda more for kids >1 so they can be exposed to different types of pollen. I dunno if it actually helps with immunity to allergies in the same way, but iirc it’s similar with peanuts. Kids exposed to them young are much less likely to develop allergies to them
That makes sense at first glance, but it’s not true when you think about it for a bit. People have allergic reactto grasses and trees that broadcast spawn their pollen all over the place. Bees collect nectar from flowering plants and spread pollen around that way. Plants only choose one over the other since they are both very resource intensive mating strategies. No one is allergic to lillac, but plenty of people are allergic to ragweed.
I liked when the US National Honey Board funded a study that compared honey, cane sugar, and HFCS and found they’re all about the same (and all raised a key blood fat, a marker for heart disease).
Of course, the truth is that sugar’s sugar and you should have limited amounts of it, but when it’s as cheap as HFCS is in the States, they can stick it in everything.
There is a health difference though https://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/the-sweet-science-behind-honey.html
Trace amounts of proteins and antioxidants, but it’s still an added sugar.
But honey is natural, corn syrup has chemicals in it!
I prefer honey cause I’m no goddamn liberal hippie, so it’s important to me that animals were killed for my food.
Maybe just me personally, but if they’re gonna put “blend” on the bottle I’d be more inclined to assume it’s intended as a selling point rather than a begrudging legal requirement.
Many thanks.
If they’re gonna put “blend” on the bottle I’d assume it was honey from different kinds of flowers mixed together, not honey mixed with something else!
Plus, it says “made with real honey”. That plus it being a blend should have raised an eyebrow to investigate further.
Only in America.
OK maybe not, but at least here it’s illegal to label it honey if it isn’t 100% pure honey. that goes for all of EU, where it’s illegal to add sugar, according to the EU honey directive.
The result is that you buy either Honey or Syrup, you know what you get, and you get what you pay for.Edit:
Apparently it’s illegal in USA too, whether adding the word “blend” makes it legal IDK. It is sort of a warning sign but still misleading.
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Ugh, Kraft singles (individually wrapped pieces of “cheese”) are labeled something like “dairy product” because they use vegetable oil.
And make sure you’re buying “ice cream” and not “frozen dairy product”. Ice Cream has a minimum cream/milk requirement that some brands fall below. Might as well call it “ice milk, etc.”.
Or “iced dessert”. <25% milkfat is the line, I think.
That just reminded me that there’s something in the store here in the US sold as Chicken Wyngz, because they don’t contain any chicken wing meat.
The result is that you buy either Honey or Syrup, you know what you get, and you get what you pay for.
You would think so, but the EU did an investigation back in 2022 and found that almost half of all honey imported into the EU is (illegally) blended with sugar syrup. If you’re buying honey labeled as a blend of EU and non-EU honey (which is almost all honey available on supermarket shelves) there’s a large chance you’re buying a sugar blend.
Current officially sanctioned honey tests are not capable of detecting fake honey. New testing methodology has been agreed upon as a result, but it will take a few years until those are internationally recognised.
If you want to be certain that what you’re buying is real honey, the only real option is to buy directly from a local producer.
Where I am in all supermarkets I know of, honey at least used to be labeled by country of origin, usually Poland or Hungary, maybe it’s not the case anymore, it’s been a while since I checked.
Still there’s a difference between the legality in USA of selling Honey and Sirup labeled as Honey blend, which is clearly illegal in EU. If there is any amount of sugar added, it is sirup. It can only LEGALLY be called honey if it’s actually pure honey.
You have to label the honey with the ingredients it is blended with as well in the US. So for this it would need to be “Blend of Honey and High Fructose Corn Syrup”.
You have to label the honey with the ingredients it is blended with as well in the US.
Nonono, that’s a huge difference, in EU it’s ILLEGAL to call it honey at all, you cannot call it honey blend either. And it’s not enough to label that there is sugar added. If you add any amount of sugar it’s not honey but sirup.
This reminds me of the dumbness of the Germans I know calling bread “toast” even though toast has to be toasted and white toastie bread has enough sugar to be a cake per eu regulations but it’s not toast because it’s not been toasted.
Good for y’all.
It doesn’t have to be in the name, just in the ingredients list. In this case it is, so it’s perfectly above-board for the US.
Shh mate you’re going to ruin the Euro circlejerk.
I doubt the Europeans will abandon their circlejerk that easily.
I just got done watching a video called European Circlejerk on xvideos.
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Yup we have the fun loopholes of adding something like “blend” means it can be 1% honey and it’s legal. Same things with why things at our stores say “cheesy” or “chocolatey”. Neither one of those need to have cheese or chocolate. It’s a marketing game for them. Come up with a name that sounds like it’s fun for the consumer but really is a massive loophole they can jump through.
Yes I’ve often seen that clearly misleading advertising is perfectly legal in USA.
I was permanently banned from the Reddit sub without recourse for posting this
Looks at username
You’re sure it wasn’t for… other reasons?
I am very worried about these rules
Na, that would get upvotes and 5 generic comments
This
/thread
Maybe, but reddit also bans anyone who isn’t a bot.
To be fair 3 lemmy communities have banned me exclusively for my username.
Update: It was because I triggered bot detection for not pandering in enough comment sections.
Do you mean… not pandering to the majority who wish you wouldn’t copulate with canines?
Makes me think of this video
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Honey is a commonly faked food. At least they label it so you can avoid it.
At least they label it so you can avoid it.
But they call it honey blend, which implies it’s a blend of honey from different sources.
This would absolutely be deemed misleading advertising here.It sucks in the US where misleading labeling gets a free pass for being technically corrent if you squint hard enough is not considered misleading.
If they were Really Smart™ they would just lable it as a dietary supplement, then all regulation goes out the window and it’s a free-for-all!
In the USA, it’s recommended to label it as “Honey with corn syrup” (PDF: https://www.fda.gov/files/food/published/PDF---Guidance-for-Industry--Proper-Labeling-of-Honey-and-Honey-Products.pdf) but that’s just a recommendation, not a law. The FDA should get stricter about this.
The FDA should get a hell of a lot stricter in general, but decades of political fuckery has made it simultaneously rife with corruption, permanently understaffed and critically underfunded.
The FDA is pretty much in exactly the condition that Republicans want for all regulatory agencies.
I think that interpretation cuts both ways, where the ‘blend’ could also imply that the honey is blended with something other than honey.
I agree. This should be called a honey sauce at best.
Pretty much the same thing as the “juice cocktails” they have in the juice isle that are fruit juice and sugar water. “Made with real fruit juice!” (like ten percent).
I always squint at meat products that claim something like “made with 100% real chicken.” Yeah okay, there is chicken in there, but how much of the food consists of that 100% real chicken?
Yeah, apparently the chicken in there is a hundred percent real, even if only two percent of the product is chicken.
I’ve been buying fruit juice recently after staying away from all that sugar for a lot of years, and I’m sad to find out that most fruit juice in my grocery is corn syrup. Even with being willing to pay more, it can be difficult to find sweetened with fruit juice or even sugar
At least in Denmark it’s illegal to use the word ‘juice’ if there’s any sugar water in it. If I see a juice on the self I can be certain it is 100% juice (maybe made from concentrate but that must be written somewhere). If it’s not then it is “nektar”
Yeah, have to stay away from the “cocktails” and stick with 100% juice. On the other hand, even most of those have a lot of apple, pear, and grape juice added, which are all very, very sweet. There’s more sugar in apple juice than in soda, it’s just the kind of sugar that’s different.
For me, I have a weight problem so sugar is sugar: I don’t need empty calories. However my kid does not, so I care what kind of sugar he gets his calories from
Understandable, though I’m not sure there’s any agreement that fructose is healthier than sucrose.
How bout thems glass bottles that’re straight juice? Often organic, and expensive. Can dilute with water and put on ice… and sweeten yourself if needed.
I’ve gotten those a few times as well. Very expensive. I’m willing to pay more but those are a lot more. It doesn’t help the they seem to want to outdo each other on how “different” the juice can be. Some of the combination are truly awful (but they’re all “superfoods”, why shouldn’t we put them together?)
Needs more this
But they call it honey blend
That is illegal as the must label it with what the Honey is blended with. So in this case you’d need to have it labeled “Blended Honey with Corn Syrup” or some variation of that.
I’m not a lawyer, but it looks like you are wrong:
4: If a food consists of honey and a sweetener, such as sugar or corn syrup, can I label the food as only “honey”?
No. A product consisting of honey and a sweetener cannot be labeled with the common or usual name “honey” because “[t]he common or usual name of a food . . . shall accurately identify or describe . . . the basic nature of the food or its characterizing properties or ingredients” (21 CFR 102.5(a)). Identifying a blend or a mixture of honey and another sweetener only as “honey” does not properly identify the basic nature of the food. You must sufficiently describe the name of the food on the label to distinguish it from simply “honey” (21 CFR 102.5(a)).However they are only exempt from the declaration if it’s pure honey, so the part about not having that is clearly against the guidelines. The header on page 1 says: “Contains Nonbinding Recommendations” So it’s very fuzzy to a layman like me.
I heard about that. I wouldn’t even buy beeswax from Amazon because I heard all the horror stories of even some of the highly rated products being cut with Paraffin, which gives me headaches. I could give you a list.
Depending on where you live, i would recommend checking out the local farmers market in the weekends. I bought iver a gallon of local honey for about $50 last summer and i am only just starting to finish it off.
And trying to get pure maple syrup and olive oil these days is also a pain, when it shouldn’t be.
Maple is often blended, and olive and avacado is straight up fraud most often.
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Hmm that would be illegal in the EU and UK, where nutritional info and proportion of honey would be required.
Quite tempted to write in though. Anyone else?
It is also required in America. The FDA requires it except for small business. Also the EU wouldn’t even let this have the word “Honey” in the name at all. I’d assume that the retail business above doesn’t reach the threshold of 500,000 so can request for an exemption of nutritional labeling.
A local supermarket chain got a fine because they had “fake cheese” sold in the cheese section. It wasn’t labeled as cheese, but it was under a large CHEESE banner. I think it was leftovers from cheese production just mixed up.
I’m ok with not throwing away stuff, but it tasted like sin, even for cheap industrial cheese standard.
Curds maybe. Seems an odd thing to fine someone over. Curds are made into cheese and also commonly sold just as curds. It’s pretty much what paneer is. Perhaps someone expects it to be generic “dairy”.
There’s a legal definition of what can be called cheese, same as with a lot of products. Curd can be used, what (I recall) is that they were mixing up leftover cheeses from production into a single one, which is not allowed in general.
I tried to find the article, it happens some time ago.
So you can have 10 cheeses but not a mutant 10-cheese. Interesting.
The Dutch consumer program recently showed that most honey in regular retail are made with a special stain of sugar syrup, made in China, that is indistinguishable from real honey using the common tests.
With more modern testing methods it can be sniffed out, but even though this product would be illegal, the same thing happens on large scale in Europe.
You don’t need nutritional info on pure honey, the standard glasses and labels from the German beekeeper’s association certainly don’t have that info on them, also, you’d need to test batch-wise. They analyse for maximum water and minimum enzyme levels, but not nutritional value that’s basically given by the water content, a bit more or less protein or pollen doesn’t change the values in a way anyone caring about macros would care about: For those intents and purposes honey is pure sugar.
And with such an abomination, they would have to state how much honey is in there.
This would be sold at a farmer’s market or something like that rather than in a super market. Just my guess. They may also have been breaking the rules the whole time and enforcement is lax.
I live near by this area. I also buy honey from Kelley’s regularly, but have never seen this abomination. The honey they sell around here is 100% grade a raw unfiltered. It also has nutrition information on the bottle.
Wait, why can’t you feed it to Children under one?
Some type of bacteria they’re not ready to handle yet?Correct. Infant botulism can result from bacteria in raw honey that is otherwise harmless to anyone with a developed immune system.
At first I was like “yeah doesn’t everyone know that?” And then I realized that I didn’t know that until I had kids.
I have a kid and this is the first I’m hearing about it.
Our pedi was over the top with reminding us. With both kids, actually.
He probably has some history that led him to stress that so much to patients.
Not everyone is good at it
I don’t have kids and I know it. When I was a kid, my parents would make us banana smoothies as a treat. It’s just banana, milk, ice, and honey. They mentioned a few times that they were excited for us to turn a year old so we could have them because of the honey.
I waited til they were there before I have them honey, hah
Yeah, I didn’t know that until very recently, and that was because of an anime I was watching.
Basically, yeah.
There are bacterial spores that are no danger to nearly all adults but will absolutely end your baby.
But you CAN put it on little bumps and scrapes.
But don’t put it on the little bumps and scrapes of children under one.
Not sure why you were down voted because it’s true. Honey has very low water activity and essentially remains in good condition over tens of thousands of years. It’s been used to treat wounds throughout history by helping create an environment inhospitable to microbes.
Anthrax, no I’m not joking.
I thought botulism was the main threat.
It is botulism. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/botulism
Apart from OP’s picture missing the 's on Kelley’s, it seems genuine due to the matching inconsistent use of capitalisation.
Only other image I could find was from Walmart. Wonder if the “Texas blend” is a Walmart specific product.
Walmart has been known to make unreasonable demands to farmers that might result in exactly this type of fuckery
Not just farmers. All their suppliers.
Why does it say “Texas” on it 6 times?
Texas is a cult
What’s obnoxious is that they keep calling their bullshit “Southern tradition!” when it’s never made it out of their state.
Only state to fight a war for slavery twice btw
Remembering bees get fed corn syrup, started reading & wow:
Honey adulteration using HFCS was especially rampant in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it was virtually impossible for regulators to determine that honey had in fact been adulterated (in some cases up to 80%) with HFCS. This practice was so epidemic that the American Beekeeping Federation developed a program of testing suspect honey samples sent in by beekeepers. This was only possible, however, through the efforts of Dr. Jonathon White, who literally came out of retirement to develop a reasonable testing procedure.
I’m okay with the product itself existing. I mean blah blah Americans put corn syrup in everything sure, you’re allowed to buy honey and you’re allowed to buy corn syrup, you’re allowed to mix them in your own kitchen, I’m okay with this substance being allowed on the store shelf.
“Honey Blend” strikes me as one of those FDA required weasel phrases like “processed whey product” or “beef-related substance”. You don’t usually see the word “blend” on a honey bear bottle, says something’s up.
The ingredients are plainly listed.
The nutrition facts are not; you’d have to lick a stamp to learn them, which I hope isn’t legal.
Nutritional facts aren’t as strictly controlled for small businesses/side businesses.
https://www.fdareader.com/blog/2018/12/11/exemption-from-food-labeling-requirements
It doesn’t seem to be legal in this particular case, however IANAL and may have missed something. What is concerning is that it does seem to be legal in a whole slew of cases that have some pretty big loopholes if that is what you happen to be looking for.
https://foodlabelmaker.com/blog/labeling-regulations/food-sales-without-nutrition-facts/
ITT:
Americans: I’m so used to being lied to about literally everything that this doesn’t seem that bad.
Smh…
I guess this is pretty American of me, but it’s called “honey blend” for a reason.
I’m American, and honey blend implies to me that it is a mix of different types of honey. Like clover honey and whatnot. Kinda like a Red blend wine is a mix of different wines, not 50% merlot/50% rubbing alcohol or something.
I thought it was my EU brain interpreting it that way. The alternative, like your wine example, is basically a black market cut product anywhere else.
Clearly, and nothing personal here and I’m sure this honey company are good people, but my comment was more addressed at the larger societal issues of being an American (which I am) and how we’re constantly lied to and how we’ve normalized that 100%. So that small things like this don’t seem worth calling out. This particular label is not that bad, but in other countries, as others have said here, the label would be even clearer. Europeans don’t have to read between the lines with phrases like, “Made with…” to know that’s not the same as “100% made with …”. That’s all.
Just like American blended whiskey is a little bit of whiskey, neutral grain spirits, and caramel coloring.
It isn’t that bad.
It says “made with real honey”, which is a pretty big clue that it isn’t real honey.
It says “texas honey blend”, again indicating that it’s honey blended with something.
And, as for “gourmet” it’s in a plastic bear-shaped container, it’s not a luxury item.
If people want to buy stuff made from high fructose corn syrup, shouldn’t they be allowed to do it? How much more obvious does it need to be that this isn’t pure honey?
You sir are on the right side of the IQ bell curve. We need packaging that people on the left side of the bell curve can understand.
As other people said, in the EU with “honey blend” you’d expect a blend of different types of honey, as it wouldn’t be allowed to be call honey unless it was pure honey. Having to decipher “made with real honey” to mean “its not real honey” is just fucking odd. Flip it over and look at the ingredients and its just a list? Why no percentages?
Gourmet stuff comes in all sorts of weird packaging and shitty stuff comes in fancy packaging, so having to assume it is corn syrup because it’s in a bear shape is also weird.
No rules for food labelling is wild.
in the EU with “honey blend” you’d expect a blend of different types of honey
And, in the US you’d expect it to be something blended with honey. Different expectations, neither one of those expectations is unreasonable.
as it wouldn’t be allowed to be call honey unless it was pure honey
Right… and it’s not called honey, it’s called “Texas Honey Blend”. If it were honey it would be called “Honey”.
Having to decipher “made with real honey” to mean “its not real honey” is just fucking odd.
You don’t have to “decipher” that, you just have to look at the fact it’s a blend, not honey. The “made with real honey” is just additional confirmation that yes, it’s not pure honey.
Flip it over and look at the ingredients and its just a list? Why no percentages?
Because different food rules? Why percentages?
Gourmet stuff comes in all sorts of weird packaging
Gourmet stuff doesn’t come in bear-shaped plastic bottles.
No rules for food labelling is wild.
It would be, if it were the case. But, that’s definitely not the case here. It’s just different from the rules you’re used to. The core of your comment seems to be “this is different than what I’m used to, and I’m shocked!”
You know what else is odd? That you’re staunchly defending this label with barely any information on it. Pretty much every point you’ve made is “but why does it need information”…
Barely any information on it? My guy, are you blind?
Oh sorry, you’re right, there’s an address for more info. I shall scribe my correspondence post haste in order to discover the nature of the product on the shelf.
So, despite the ingredients being listed, you’re still confused? Do you have a brain injury?
Okay, this is the line that should not be crossed, we should evict Texas.
*eject
This is fine, they’re telling you what’s in the bottle. I mean I don’t agree with messing up honey with corn syrup and the fact that the bottle sort of leads you to think you’re getting just honey, but that’s par for the course in a lot of processed food packaging at least in the US.
Yea, and no, that should be better regulated. Let’s not settle for something bad just because. In France this is better regulated, but still some brands play cat and mouse, finding corner cases to circumvent the rules. Honey is subject to this very frequently too.
I don’t disagree. I think how blatantly misleading packaging and labeling many foods are in the US is and it’s BS. From the meaninglessness of “organic” to “100% natural”, they don’t really tell the consumer what that means.
However, strictly in the context of the US and our food labeling laws, the honey in the image is ok, even if we understand it has some fuckery about it.
The term “organic” is actually regulated by the USDA though, unlike “natural”
I understand that. However, the average consumer likely doesn’t know what the term means. One might be led to think the produce didn’t use pesticides, or that the food is more nutritious when in fact certain pesticides are allowed and the food can have the same nutritional value as non-organic. I would say that, despite the rules, people would likely feel misled, even if the product complies with the actual rules that allow it to be labeled organic.
It’s like “cage free” chickens. Sounds like a spacious barnyard full of happy chooks? In reality it will likely be a very crammed open warehouse floor with poor conditions. Are they cage free? Sure, the condition is met for the label. But the consumer doesn’t know what it means.
You might say that Reddit is mostly just high fructose corn syrup, while Lemmy is pure, responsibly sourced honey.
Also the murder hornets.
This reminds me of KFC and how they switch from “Honey” to “Honey Sauce”.
On-brand for a company the wants to hide the fact that the F stands for ‘fried.’
As a beekeeper of 30 odd years, that hurts
ps welcome
If you sell at farmer’s markets, I appreciate people like you, because it’s where we always buy our honey. And we have yet to regret it because it always tastes better than store bought honey. Especially if you like monofloral honey, which I do.
What is your favourite bee?
Did you know the symbol of my city is a worker bee?
I got a shock random permaban in one of my preferred niche subs from someone obviously having a bad day and projecting it outwardly. It made me sit up and ask why I was putting up with so much nonsense and abandoned reddit that very moment. I had been dipping my toes into Lemmy but this made me dive in head first.
It happens here too. There are certain people. They are indecent. And they want to control the conversation.
The main difference here being if a community has crappy mods you can not only start your own better one, you can start it on another whole server where said crappy mods have no power. Bonus if the server’s general vibe happens to be a better fit for what you want to build.
How naive to think that those indecent forum manipulating supermods don’t have accounts across most popular instances.
Yeah. The rest of us are just indecent and happy to let the conversation go whatever way it goes.
