Why salad is so overrated

"Better" is not straightforward. In general, eating a lot of raw foods leads to weight loss, not because they are magic, but because they require a lot of work to digest, compared to cooked foods. Which points to one of the problems with the WaPo article - it uses "nutrition" in the narrowest sense of "containing nutrients". Obviously important, but not the only thing to consider. That head of lettuce may contain as much water as a bottle of Evian, and not much more in the way of nutrients, but it also contains large amounts of fiber, which is functionally important to our guts. There's a passing dig at eggplant for being watery and non-nutritious, but that ignores not just its fiber but also its antioxidants - https://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2004/040108.htm