It is easy to make a delicious-looking hamburger at home. But would this hamburger still look delicious after it sat on your kitchen table under very bright lights for six or seven hours? If someone took a picture or made a video of this hamburger after the seventh hour, would anyone want to eat it? More importantly, do you think you could get millions of people to pay money for this hamburger?
These are the questions that fast food companies worry about when they produce commercials or print ads for their products. Video and photo shoots often last many hours. The lights that the photographers use can be extremely hot. These conditions can cause the food to look quite unappealing to potential consumers. Because of this, the menu items that you see in fast food commercials are
probably not actually edible.
Let’s use the hamburger as an example. The first step towards building the perfect commercial hamburger is the bun. The food stylist—a person employed by the company to make sure the products look perfect—sorts through hundreds of buns until he or she finds one with no wrinkles. Next, the stylist carefully rearranges the sesame seeds on the bun using glue and tweezers for maximum visual appeal. The bun is then sprayed with a waterproofing solution so that it will not get soggy from contact with other ingredients, the lights, or the humidity in the room.
Next, the food stylist shapes a meat patty into a perfect circle. Only the outside of the meat gets cooked—the inside is left raw so that the meat remains moist. The food stylist then paints the outside of the meat patty with a mixture of oil, molasses, and brown food coloring. Grill marks are either painted on or seared into the meat using hot metal skewers.
Finally, the food stylist searches through dozens of tomatoes and heads of lettuce to find the best-looking produce. One leaf of the crispest lettuce and one center slice of the reddest tomato are selected and then sprayed with glycerin to keep them looking fresh.
So the next time you see a delectable hamburger in a fast food commercial, remember: you’re actually looking at glue, paint, raw meat, and glycerin! Are you still hungry?
Questions
1) The author’s primary purpose is to
A. convince readers not to eat at fast food restaurants
B. explain how fast food companies make their food look delicious in
commercials
C. teach readers how to make delicious-looking food at home
D. criticize fast food companies for lying about their products in commercials
2) According to the passage, fast food companies use things like glue and glycerin on hamburgers that appear in advertisements because
I. no one actually has to eat the food used in the commercial
II. it is important that people who see these advertisements would
pay for the food being advertised
III. filming a commercial or a print ad can take a very long time
A. l only
B. I and II only
C. II and III only
D. I, II, and III
3) As used in paragraph 2, something is edible if it
A. can safely be eaten
B. looks very delicious
C. seems much smaller in real life
D. tastes good
4) According to the passage, a food stylist working on a hamburger commercial might use glue to
A. make sure the meat patty stays attached to the bun
B. keep the sesame seeds on the bun in perfect order
C. arrange the lettuce on the tomato
D. hold the entire hamburger together
5) Based on information in the passage, it is most important for the lettuce and tomato used in a fast food hamburger commercial to
A. have a great taste
B. be the perfect shape and size
C. appear natural
D. look fresh
6) As used in the final paragraph, which is the best synonym for delectable?
A. disgusting
B. familiar
C. fake
D. delicious