During a week alone in Bermuda, Mark learned (or re-learned) many things about cooking for yourself and just yourself every day: The necessity of repetition, the relative effort involved in cooking for one instead of two or four, the role that positive reinforcement plays in a cooking life, and the relationship of alcohol and salt.

Of course, there’s nothing morally wrong with going out to eat, and of course it can be fun, but the food that most of us eat when we do go out makes it a dangerous habit. Even with grocery stores nearby, Americans turn to burgers and fries before fruits and vegetables.

Most of us have, hidden deep inside, at least a touch of American exceptionalism. Yet we routinely let other people—faceless schemers in skyscrapers or industrial parks—determine what we eat. Are we lazy?

A hundred years ago, you cooked and you ate. You didn’t claim to be a vegetarian or a carnivore or a locavore. There was barely any marketing, and national brands were nonexistent. Fat, carbs, protein weren’t bad or good; they were food. Hardly anything contained more than one ingredient, because everything was an ingredient. How did we get so off course?