Working titele: Finding Home

I can't eat soy anything (beans, sauce, tofu, whatever). And I love chinese food. This can be problematic - and it certainly limits the types of chinese food I can eat. (Never mind the separate problem of there being hardly any good chinese restaurants in this country).

So whenever we go out for chinese I almost always eat sweat and sour something or other, because it's never given me any problems and according to all the chinese waiters and people I've ever asked soy sauce is not used in sweet and sour sauces. This includes the people at the very good chinese restaurant in Malmö that serves genuine traditional chinese food, not Swedishified crap.

So could someone please tell me why the hell all the ready made sweet and sour sauses and dishes I've ever seen include soy? And why do most cookbooks and online receipes I've seen include it too? Will I really have to learn chinese to figure this out?

And while I'm at it - why do ready made cabbage rolls include soy? No receipe I've ever seen does. And Why do ready made spring rolls include soy when the ones at chinese restaurants and my favourite thai place don't?

In fact - why does all ready-made chinese food ever seem to include soy, and most receipes in western cookbooks of chinese food too, when in restaurants there are plenty of dishes that don't?

And don't even mention freaking peanut oil...