@freemo
Ermmm....I'm in Oklahoma, specifically....so...
I also cook. A lot of stuff that you'd think wouldn't be sweetened, actually is. The sweet is added sparingly, like salt. It's super-subtle.
@ClaraListensprechen4 ahh yea, there are levels to it, and a small amount of sweet gets in a lot of food.
Its actually one of my pet peves, partly cause I dont like sugar taste, but also because i try to be healthy and cut out carbs. So the fact that its so hard to get a savory meat dish with 0 carbs is quite annoying to me, as far as my taste buds are concerned no one knows how to cook half decent food without slapping sugar all over it.
@ClaraListensprechen4
I love japanese food. Sweet-spicy can be ok, but even in japanese I prefer the soy flavors (like many udon dishes or sushi) than some of the sweeter profiles (like sweetned soy often used with fried tofu).
Also I suspect you are in europe, somewhere nordic or nearby, perhaps dutch or german? Because in that region asian food, specifically japanese, is uncharacteristically sweet. In the USA and in japan itself it is less commonly sweet.