Okay, why is everything so darn sweet?

Let's put it this way--I am not sugar-phobic. Those handy 4-pound cartons of the stuff don't last so long at my house.

But I've often had the experience in recent years that some eagerly-anticipated delicacy is so sweet as to be inedible. I pretty much don't eat ice cream any more for this reason. However, lately I've been unable to shake the longing for the butterscotch sundaes of my youth (the ones we used to walk from the dorms in the rain down the El Camino to get at Sambo's, long gone).

So I got the Haagen-Dazs vanilla, notable for no weird ingredients. Got Narsai's Butter Caramel Decadence, also quality ingredients and no weird stuff, and heated it up with great anticipation.

Let's put it this way, it would have tasted better with about half the sugar.

Just because something is supposed to be sweet and dessert-like doesn't mean it has to support the entire sugar industry with a single dish. Doesn't anybody make ice cream and toppings that avoid weird stuff like carrageenan or carob powder or gelatin and don't feel the need to make sugar the overwhelming ingredient? I don't want fake sweetener, just a bit of moderation with the real stuff.