What do readers think of Stuffed by Hank Cardello & Doug Garr? Write your own review.

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.

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.