Hopkins tipped the warm salad into a giant metal bowl, beckoned the kids off their benches, and showed them the result. “Salad’s done,” he said. “Who wants a taste?”

A forest of hands shot skyward and then arrowed into the bowl, burrowing for the glistening leaves, dark and still slightly crisp. The kids shrieked and giggled, licking the warm dressing off their fingers. They dug back in for more.

“No way,” whispered one of the mothers standing behind me. “My kid would be like: ‘Salad. My enemy!’”

I turned around to nod sympathetically. By the time I turned back, the students from Knight Elementary School in Lilburn, Ga. had demolished the salad and were wolfing down plant-based pita sandwiches smeared with a mayonnaise