[tptacek]

The Japanese diet, which people in the west sort of accept as default-healthy, is also heavily sweetened; that is, it uses "sweet" as a flavor component probably even more than Americans do. Japanese home cooking adds sugar to savory dishes the way Americans add black pepper.

I think it's obvious that Japanese people generally consume less sugar than Americans do, so it's not my argument that sugar is fine or that the western diet isn't problematic.

Rather: the idea that there's some moral/health advantage to avoiding sweetness is unfounded, kind of culturally blinkered, won't hold up under scrutiny.