Food Advertising Versus Reality

So sad. The Guardian UK has a wonderful gallery of food that looks different in reality than in advertising. This, to no one, should come as a shocker, but it's still kind of sad, considering how tantalizing the food look on television or in print. In the gallery, you'll see examples from Taco Bell, Burger King, McDonald's, and Arby's, among others.

That being said, I've never gotten home with Taco Bell nachos and exclaimed, "These don't look like they do on TV! I want my 1.27 back!" I believe it's called selling the sizzle and not the steak, and fast food companies are quite possibly the most adept of any companies at it. Looking back, I can't count how many sorry excuses for food I've shoveled down my throat without really tasting and not thought twice about the difference in advertising and reality.

And perhaps the food companies are vilified a little too often. One can argue whether or not they inject their food with nicotine (or whatever passes for addictive these days), but they only make the food available, cheap, and easily accessible for the masses. Plus, it provides all the things we, as humans, crave biologically: salts, fats, and sugars. See, to go on a small tangent, we have not evolved to the point that our bodies think of these substances as less than rare, so we are sort of programmed to gobble them up. Talking about all this food has indeed made me hungry...