#FoodPornFriday: Advertisers deceive your tummies

Ever wondered why food always looks so perfect in advertisements?

The steamy-looking deliciousness is designed to make your mouth water, and encourage you to jump in the car and spoil yourself with the deceitful pleasures that comes with staged food.

Below is a list of the most common tricks used to enhance the appearance of food.

1. Deodorant or hairspray makes fruit shiny.

2. Engine oil is used instead of maple syrup on pancakes because they absorb actual syrup too quickly.

3. Burger patties are coloured with shoe polish to create grill marks, because they are only cooked for a few minutes to remain thick and juicy in pictures.

4. Glycerine keeps seafood looking fresh as it loses its presentation very quickly.

5. Chinese noodles dry out quickly, so glucose syrup is used to give it a moist appearance.

6. Cardboard inside cakes, coated with a thin layer of icing, is used to help keep the cake dry.

7. Liquid soap creates natural and attractive looking foam in milk, coffee and beer.

8. Coloured mashed potatoes are used instead of ice cream because ice cream melts too fast under hot studio lighting.

9. Shaving cream is used instead of whipped cream because it doesn’t melt.

10. Glue is used instead of milk to capture cereals because the cereal absorbs milk too quickly, and it sinks to the bottom.

11. Bubbles of carbon dioxide in soft drinks disappear quickly. Therefore, photographers add heartburn antacids. The mixing of sparkling water and antacids causes a chemical reaction of neutralisation, and bubbles reappear.

12. Chicken in advertising is never cooked on the grill. It is subjected to a minimal heat treatment and then painted. To add volume, photographers stuff it with paper towels and sew it.

13. To create the perfect consistency, photographers add melted wax of different colours into sauces.

14. Steaming food in advertising looks so appetising. In truth, it isn’t even hot. Besides Photoshop, photographers have other ways to create steam, like cotton balls, where photographers moisten them and put them into a microwave. Then they place them inside a dish, creating a few minutes of steam.