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this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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Yeah, film and photo shots of food are typically inedible because the only way to achieve the “perfect” look is to do crazy things like gluing things in place, covering food in scotch guard/fabric protector spray, waxing things, putting things like cardboard or wooden skewers inside the food to give it stability, and more.
Makes you wonder how it’s legal to show an item that is literally impossible to sell as a food item in place of the slapped together item you’d actually get.
I have heard that at least the main ingredient being advertised must be real and the actual product. So for example, in a McDonald's commercial the patty must be an actual edible McDonald's patty, but the vegetables and bun can be made of whatever.
The way I understood it is a commercial for McD in the US isnt required to have real food; a commercial for McD's "whatever" has to have the actual item being advertised, but can be so meticulously crafted, you'd never see one like that in the wild. A commercial for a grocery chain, for example- most/all of of the food you see is props made to look like the most appetizing food youve ever dreamed of.
Who knows if this is enforced. NPR and PBS stations are specifically prohibited from "sponsorship" messages mentioning a specific product or service, and they've been ignoring that for decades.
I dated a woman that worked in TV ad production. Everything has to be real food.
Yes, everything has to be real. Doesn’t have to be edible, or appetizing.
If I take bread and spray it with scotch guard to make sure the liquid condiment I’m putting on it oozes across instead of soaking into the bread, it’s all still real food. But would you eat it?
If I prop up whipped cream by putting a cardboard cone under it, it’s still real food, but would you eat it?
Just because it’s real food doesn’t mean it hasn’t been modified to be inedible.
I'm saying that you can't use scotch guard or anything like that.
It's been a while, but I don't believe that they were allowed to use cardboard or anything of the sort to prop up or modify the appearance of the product. Instead, they would cook say 100 burger patties, go through dozens of heads of lettuce, slice 100 tomatoes, etc, and pick out the perfect pieces to make a burger that looks the way that they want.
The most that they could adulterate the food was to make a slurry with corn starch, water, and food dye that could be applied with a paint brush to make things look juicy, etc. They would use a clothes steamer to make a pizza look just right. Lots of tricks, but it had to be something that you could just pick up and eat, even if you wouldn't necessarily want to.
Go looking and you’ll find numerous articles, anecdotes, and videos that go into the ways the work with the ingredients.
The important part is that they are not allowed to “misrepresent” the food. Meaning you can’t make it look like you’re getting five pounds of meat when you’re actually only getting one pound.
But there’s nothing stopping them from putting paint on the burger patties to make them look perfectly cooked, or using paper towel and toothpicks inside to hold everything at “the perfect angle” or spraying scotch guard on pancakes to make sure the syrup runs nicer. Because the person watching the ad isn’t getting a “misrepresentation” of the food or ingredients.
It’s a fine line, and people have walked it over and over. The advertisers and food stylists have it down to a science, and because it’s all about the money they go over and above to make sure they walk juuuust inside the line.
I have heard of them slitting the buns and patties in the back so that they can make them look a little bigger in the front.