"Cleaning a freshly picked head of lettuce can be an act of mindfulness, your worries melting away as you wash and tear each leaf. And the payoff, along with the beautiful summer salad, is a feeling of virtuous accomplishment."

"But if you're a busy working parent, the rip-and-release salad kit in a bag can take some hassle out of dinner prep."

"As a culture, it's clear which direction we're headed. Per capita sales of fresh iceberg lettuce have fallen by half over the past 25 years, but there's been a boom in bagged greens and salad kits, sales of which are projected to reach $7 billion a year."

"According to the Nielsen Perishables Group, which tracks such things, Americans bought twice as many bags of packaged salads as heads of lettuce last year. And over the past five years, sales of bagged lettuce have been increasing by 6.5 percent every year. Sales of intact lettuce heads have remained flat."