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There are currently 18 member reviews
for Stuffed
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Laurie (Nellysford VA)
Where's the Beef?
Not long before reading Stuffed, I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Perhaps it is only in comparison to Michael Pollan’s thought-provoking work that Stuffed struck me as a bit uninspiring, more like a business school case study than a book for popular consumption. As a former food executive, Hank Cardello argues that the food industry has contributed to the obesity crisis in the United States, and suggests some incremental changes that could ameliorate those effects. His suggestions are directed at the food industry itself. As a consumer who tends to avoid packaged foods, I felt like a third party, an eavesdropper on a conversation among food industry insiders that didn't have much to do with me.
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Joan (Ellicott City MD)
Stuffed - With The Same Old Stuff
My review was slow in coming, not because the book was not read, but because I could not agree with myself about the worth of the book. Hank Carddello presents a very readable picture of merchandising in the food industry. He has the experience to evaluate the methods used. Many of the revelations are common sense observations and others do shed some light on how many of us are duped into poor eating habits. He says that companies resist change (healthy ones) not beneficial to corporate earning reports. I liked his honesty.
He also said that obese Americans choose to be unhealthy. I agreed with that statement too. However, he goes on to remove the responsibility of behavior from the consumer. The blame is placed on the food and beverage industry. His cure-all necessitates change from the producers and not the consumers. In my opinion there are too many instances where the consequences of behavior are removed from the individual. I see us becoming a nation of whiners always blaming someone else for our shortcomings. Can I sue Krispy Kreme because I am Fat?
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Patricia (Highland Heights OH)
Stuufed!
Reading Stuffed brought out all of the ways that the marketing sector of our world manages to trick us into all sorts of varied behaviors. The book brings this out in a variety of ways and lets the reader know that we have been duped into believing all that the ads tell us. It also explains the fact that we truly do not know what it is that we are putting into our bodies and that product placement is everything. The point is well made in the first chapter and repeated with very specific detail throughout the book.
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Laura (Providence RI)
Global Business Obesity Forum
This book is not a difficult read, and it contains many interesting anecdotes. Yet, many of the topics have already been covered as well or better by other writers. The author ought to have better organized the book, and even title, around the angle that makes his take different: not simply as someone with decades of experience in the food and food marketing industries, but even more as someone who thinks the food industry is not only the problem, but also the only hope of a solution (and thus, the author's own organization, the Global Business Obesity Forum).
In the end, however, I do not share the author's faith that this industry will make the necessary changes largely on its own, without much greater pressure from government and consumers. And I am skeptical of his positioning himself in the middle, between what he takes to be extreme viewpoints, especially when he (wrongly) equates a food industry lobbyist/marketer (Rick Berman) with a consumer/health advocate (Michael Jacobson, of the Center for Science in the Public Interest). This book contributes to the discussion, but should be read critically.
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