On the Menu: Eavesdropping offers an eye-opening look at what consumers think about food

Being nosy by nature, I enjoy overhearing small conversations in public places, especially restaurants and supermarkets because most of the talk there focuses on food.

In a market you can stop midaisle and pretend to look for a favorite brand of crackers and listen if the talk intrigues you.

At a Whole Foods in Princeton, N.J., I recently pretended to be looking for the perfect cauliflower when a man asked his co-shopper, “Do we want organic broccoli?”

“No,” the woman he was