More on Foodways: Mana

This small discussion of another aspect of my foodways is part confession. I'm honestly embarrased by it. It sounds hopelessly superstitious and non-rational, but I can't think of any other way to put it:

Home-cooked food has mana. Other food -- from the hautest of the haute, to fast food, and most importantly, everything in between -- does not.

This is how I know:

If I don't eat home-cooked food in a certain span of time, I start to wilt. Seriously. I start to have cravings, I start to feel vaguely ill. Tired. Run down. This span of time? A week, maybe two.

I don't have to cook the food myself, mind you. Any home-cooked meal will do.

I don't know how to explain this phenomenon without referring to something akin to the concept of mana -- the idea that there's something immanent in home-cooked food that just doesn't exist in commercially prepared food, no matter how fresh, how quality, how attentively prepared.

All I know is, I recognize the wilting, its cause, and its cure.