My grandparents used to eat lots of cake and biscuits, but it was all homemade and had less sugar in it than shop bought cake does today. Also, I notice that modern cake and jam recipes have a LOT more sugar in them than my old 1950 recipe books. I guess if we are used to eating bought cake loaded with sugar, then we will want more in our cake when we make it ourselves.
And we never had ready meals, sugary cereals or all the other foods that have hidden sugar in them. I've noticed that modern savoury recipes often advise adding sugar to a lasagne, shepherds pie or chicken casserole - YUK! But if you are used to sugar-laden ready meals, you will miss the sugar when you cook your own.
I was in a café this afternoon and chose the plain scone with no jam as it was the lowest-sugar thing on the menu - it was so sweet that I couldn't finish it. I'm finding it a real problem whenever I eat out as food tastes so sweet I have great difficulty eating it. I tend to avoid eating cake in restaurants now, but it's difficult when you are at a birthday celebration to sit there with just a drink while everyone else eats cake!