Have you ever seen a McDonald’s or Wendy’s advertisement and really appreciated how delicious a sandwich or burger looked. You were so impressed that you went to said fast food restaurant and ordered yourself one.
You fork over your hard earned white collar cash expecting to receive the same beautiful masterpiece shown in the ads just to be let down by a sloppy disgusting looking sandwich that was probably made by an ex inmate.
Sure, you can’t expect that much for a burger that is delivered in less than three minutes but give me a break people, false advertisement is false advertisement. If you are going to advertise sexy full figured burgers don’t give me a squashed beef patty with some sort of material that is supposed to pass as cheese.
Think I’m just trash talking fast food restaurants? Naaa, I can appreciate a two cheeseburger meal from McDonald’s when nursing a hangover as much as the next guy, but seriously, quit advertising your food as designer foods and start advertising it like it is. Cheap, fast and greasy.
Here are 14 wonderful fast food vs reality examples.
14. Arby’s Beef ‘n’ Cheddar Sandwhich
VS.
13. McDonald’s Sausage Breakfast Burrito
VS
12. Subway six-inch turkey breast and ham sub sandwich
Vs
11. Wendy’s Southwest Taco Salad
Vs
10. Taco Bell Nachos Bell Grande
Vs
9. Burger King sausage, egg, and cheese croissant
Vs
8. KFC Famous Bowl
Vs
7. McDonald’s McSkillet burrito
Vs
6. McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin
Vs
5. McDonald’s Big Mac
Vs
4. Burger King Enormous Omelet Sandwich
Vs
3. McDonald’s Filet O Fish Sandwich
Vs
2. Burger King Whopper
Vs
1. Wendy’s Chicken Club
Vs
Pictures Courtesy of The West Virginia Surf Report
hmmm i get that wendys salad and it neverrrrrrr comes like that…
You cant blame the companies for having workers who prepare the food on a not so attractive note..
But can you really blame them? its fast food..what do you expect?
YO THAT CHICKEN CLUB LOOKS REDTARDERD
Wow… SImply wow…
lol the first one is just hilarious….but you must admit that some of these dont look that bad..!
but yes alot of them, like the first one, do look like they are they are down syndroms of the real version
I dont know where your fast food restaurants are located, but I can asure you that even in Burger King Iraq, you can get more quality. Are you sure you didnt messed with the burgers before taking the photos?
I tend to find that A&W delivers on the advertised goods. Could be why it’s my favourite fast-food, even if it’s a bit costlier :V
I want to eat ALL OF IT. Except Arby’s. No one wants Arby’s
Ha!
Um… marketing pretty much uses the same foods you get, except they spend hours assembling it, then lighting it, then photographing it. Yours was in a bag, hastily assembled by an underpaid highschool dropout. Don’t expect the photographer to stoop to that level.
Well…if they hired english speaking American’s this wouldn’t happen!
Lol the Chicken Club is puking
Hahaha. But we keep going back because it’s cheap, convenient, and satisfying. I can think of other relationships we have for the exact same reason.
The worst is the KFC bowl. That thing looks disgusting.
haha, i think the big mac is my favorite…its such a drastic change…and that wendy’s chicken club looks like jizz falling off it…disgusting…
Yeah, well. They’ll never look exactly like the picture.
The last one was the worst.. Maccas was a bit hard done by, they make good looking burgers where im from
the mc fish kinda looks like its supposed to …
Quit whining and eat your disgusting fast food.
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Great article, missing the cheeseburger in a can though
For a long time I have joked with people the best photographers in the world are the ones who take pictures for KFC Mcdonalds etc. Because as your article shows what you see is in no way what you get
Looks about right. I think at some point, everyone looks at their squashed, greased-soaked sandwich with the meat hanging mostly off the bread and the cheese hanging off the opposite side and realizes that they’ve never, ever seen anything like the pictures advertised. Hell, when I get anything that looks even remotely appetizing, with the ingredients mostly aligned and the condiments largely ON the sandwich instead of squirted out the side and into the wrapper, I’m absolutely stunned and want to take a picture of such an anomaly. .
Wow this made me hungry!!! Great jib
I’m lovin it.
I am completely besides myself with discussed after seeing those pictures the (subway) pic looked somewhat decent.
so advertising attempts to mislead, eh?… who knew?
They should see how my poo looks without fast food and with, its about the same difference.
I was actually surprised at how similar some of them looked. That Big Mac you got looks really healthy compared to what I usually have handed to me.
MMm Delicious..
We’ve all experienced this - good pictorial
Yeah, they do lie about what they really look like, but the pictures used are like the worst possible cases.
[...] a sucker for these sorts of comparisons - images of fast food found in real life compared to the images of fast food in commercial images. [...]
This is fucking stupid, they obviously picked the worst pictures to place here as if every single time one of the above items is purchased it will look as disgusting as the picture shows it to be.
THIS is the best thing I’ve seen in years! Let’s get this published!
If you want cheap food, it’s going to be made by cheap help who aren’t paid enough to care about making it look good. Pay more, get more.
You idiot - that’s a picture of a BMT sub, not turkey and ham. I work at subway… the only difference between the picture and that is we don’t fold the salami or pepperoni.
Yo Aaron…..that Chicken Club is messed up!!!
That last one looks like somebody came inside it lawl
[...] that with what normally happens in the actual fast [...]
Thank you for showing what these hamburgers look like. Did you take the pictures yourself?
filet o fish was the closest, and the wendys chicken was the most disgusting.
You’ve put me off fast food for a while.
This is amazing. Seriously thank you for posting this! I am going to show my friends.
why did you squish the food? You can see finger marks on all of the buns.
the last one looks disgusting
I would equate this to supermodels being airbrushed in magazine ads. When you see them in real life its like, ‘um you looked much better in that magazine!’.
The food in advertisements are not real food. I remember an article in a kids magazine a long time ago showing how they actually create the sandwiches. The ingredients that are real are often sprayed with various chemicals to make them stay in place or look a certain way.
Wow honestly when is anything advertised on TV exactly what they tell you it’s going to be? Yes, the photographers spend hours assembling the food (which is, more often than not, plastic replicas). Would you prefer that the people who are making your big mac spend hours painstaking assembling it? would you like to wait around for that? if so, then i can understand your frustration.
As for advertising what you get, would you buy the sandwiches if they looked like the actual thing? Seriously, dont tell me that all of those sandwiches look appealing. Without the addition of your other senses to draw you in for the buy, you probably wouldn’t eat this crap.
Please, stop bitching and if you have a problem with it, don’t eat there.
Man I know the food you actually get is not as good looking but these pictures look worse then your everyday fast food.
That top Subway sub is a BMT, not turkey and ham, but the point is still valid
I have to say, as someone that spent some time working in fast food in high school, that a lot of times the sandwiches look considerably more like the advertisements BEFORE they get wrapped, sacked, driven home and then unwrapped. I’m not gonna say they’re all spot on for the ads, cause that’s crazy, but you’ve got to be realistic, the cheese on that nasty looking KFC thing is just going to melt before you get home.
I work at Arby’s, and quite honestly, I know from experience that sometimes, and only sometimes, you get a worker (or a whole restaurant) that’s bad. But seriously, you can’t judge an entire chain by one store’s laziness. One spoiled fish does not an ocean ruin.
Ask any advertising people about how they achieve those stunning food images, and you will find out they use a lot of non food products, like plastic, hair spray, toothpicks… No one would dare to eat the food they use as “models” for the photographs. Even cereal boxes mention: texture enhanced, or size enhanced to show ____.
Luckily not all of the food that you got for real was so disturbingly different
Now you made us all hungry again.
Dude, honestly, these pics really aren’t that bad. Aside from the Arby’s one and the Whopper, the actual food looks pretty dang close to the picture, although maybe slightly less “pretty.” Some, like the McMuffin and the Filet-o-Fish, look almost exactly alike.
I was expecting a much greater disparity. Next thing you’re going to tell me supermodel pictures are airbrushed….
I do not understand how they get away with advertising products the way they do. Seems like fraud to me.
The only food product I have ever purcased that actually resembled the add was the Carl’s Jr $6 bugers when they first came out. It is hit or miss now… but I was amazed to open the box and see something that looked just like the picture.
It is also unfortunate that if you were to return a food product for poor presentation (at a fast food place) you can bet you will get something special in your replacement item.
You can make the arguement that there is poorly paid and poorly educated people working there or what not… but I can say when I was 16/17 and working fast food I still had pride in what I did and expected from myself to deliver quality product. I did not actuall prepare the food… but still.
Anyway.. yeah.. blah blah blah
what a difference
to the intelligent English speaking person who said: “Well…if they hired english speaking American’s this wouldn’t happen!” you fail your own english test since AMERICANS (plural of American) doesn’t have an apostrophe. Also, who cares if the employees speak English. Making a burger requires no speaking skills, just listening. When a guy’s millionaire boss tells him to make a burger in a minute, he has no choice but to make it ugly.
I’d eat most of those still. pretty delicious.
except for the mayo. ew.
Most of the reality pictures look tastier than the advertising pictures.
Seriously, how much did McDonalds pay you to pull the patties out of their burgers to make their burger photos look better than they do in real life? For the oppositions burgers it looks like you mashed them before opening them, then tried to pick sesame seeds off the buns before taking the photos… while the McDonalds burgers in your photos really do look 10x better than they do in real life. Why didn’t you mangle the McDonalds burgers the same way you mangled the Wendys burger at the end?
It would be nice to have honesty in advertising… but it would be equally nice to have honesty in blogging as well.
mmmm!! On my way to wendy’s
Seriously
that pic with the whopper isnt true because i work at burger king, and it is not a real size whopper
comical. but why is this gross to peeps? We fund these places in exchange for the time it takes to prepare a real meal. Oy!… America.
Is it weird that even the real-life pictures are making me hungry?
I used to work in the advertising industry and it really takes a lot of hours to shoot just one food set up. In the real world, do you really want the customers to wait for hours before they can eat what they ordered? If you want to eat nice looking food, just go to fine dining. Food preparation and food style usually take less than an hour. Lastly, I don’t know if there are high school, college drop outs or ex-cons working in the fast food industry but I know that some, if not the majority, are working students trying to make ends meet so that when they graduate, they can have better jobs. These people appreciate our respect for they work really fast just to serve us in a small period of time. If you have any complaints on how your food looks like, I’m sure they will give you another one more pleasing to look at but you still have to wait.
so lets be honest here…. what is this site trying to prove? how many people will start paying beyond their means for something nutritious? It’s cheap, we thrive on cheap. Think about it, those with the means and resources get kale and kamut, the poor get what we’re intended to get. Heart disease.
Reminds me of how my date looked when I picked her up last night, and then how she looked when she left this morning.
You clearly don’t understand the point of advertising. Those nice, gorgeous looking photos were taking by professional photographers, costing thousands and set up by professional food preparers. There are people who specialise in making food look that good, that’s like their job. You really can’t fall for it because everyone knows that the food looks (and usually tastes) like crap.
McD’s and co. aren’t going to lower their game, how else will they attract new customers?
WHAT A SHOCK. Food prepared specifically for photographing is different from what you would normally receive? Next you’ll be telling us that using Nivea doesn’t actually make you look like a supermodel.
wow the 1st and last one are the worst lmao!! but i agree with the above if you’d like your food prepared better and more carefully…stop eating fast food and go to a nice restaurant, yes you’ll spend more but at least your food will taste and look good
“Oh noes! My patty isn’t centered! Give me my moneys back!” Sensible, and not at all nitpicky.
Why do so many americans lack the willpower to not eat all that fat amazes me.
Anyone that assumes the food is gonna look identical to the advertisement is just plain stupid. It’s fast food. It’s designed to be whipped out at reasonable speeds. If you are so disappointed, then stop eating there. You want “fast” food, but you want them to make your food perfect? You can’t have both. It’s like any microwaveable dish or entree. You look at the package and think, wow that looks good. You open it up and realize it looks less appetizing. As long as it doesn’t have anything “extra” and tastes decent, you’ll probably go come back for more. Quit complaining.
I think the problem is that your photographer sucks and doesn’t know how to 1) light a shot, 2) frame a shot, 3) use a tripod, or 4) focus the camera. Oh, and 5) not manhandle the food first.
dude this just makes me super hungry
Hey! All of them was REAL, What’s the big deal?You cannot expect that a burger which is hot and with some cheese wrapped in a paper looks like those pictures! The cheese melts and the bread dents. It’s that simple! But was any of them FALSE? No or less ingredients which had been advertised? If yes, then we can blame them.
That real Sausage McMuffin looks better than the marketing one. Marketing one looks like the thing just came off an assembly line, real one looks like… well.. real food
I recently purchased a Mcdonald’s quarter pounder and I am happy to say that it looked like the one in their ads. I was actually caught of guard at first because I couldn’t believe what I saw in front. The tomato was a tad bit green but not to green to warrant complain and there was shortage of ketchup on the inside but easily solved by the ketchup dispenser. In all, the best looking fast food burger I’ve purchased.
well im guessing yer not winning awards fer yer photography, n like they said this def issnt all real food in the ads, n screw it, baked as hell id prolly eat every single one
Sorry, but I prefer the real photos… that food looks GOOD. Making me hungry.
In food photography, people use stuff that is not real food. Real food looks ugly but tastes good.
Some of the photos you take are ‘take away’ type. The wrapping helped in making it more ugly. It wont look so pretty anyway when it gets in your digestion system.
I love posts like this… how expectations can be built up… but ultimately you are always disappointed.
Brilliant!
Well.. this is not limited with fast food… any commerical will try to make the product look good. That’s the whole point..
Menus in restaurants are the same deal. You don’t get exactly what is shown on the menu (not talking fast food anymore).
And also as some others mentioned, those pictures are pretty much the worst case scenario which I’m sure will depend on the restaurant staff.
Wow, im hungry now.
The only thing I like about McDonalds here (in Spain) is that their food usually looks exactly like the photos. But that fact usually worries me too, because their burgers look like plastic display burgers. However, I’ve never been queueing for less than 10 minutes, and it has never taken less than 5 minutes for them to give me my plastic food. Maybe that food looks that way because you (US people) are much too worried about how long it takes to get your burgers?
BTW, I think you should eat less junk food. You’re becoming an unhealthy country, and that’s more dangerous than any foreign threat.
Like 30 days you just made me hungary.
Fast food is a weapon to kill the masses, corn syrup is murder.
Wow, you must eat alot of junk food!
That’s an unfair comparison. Your images are on different angles than the ones presented, and some (notably the Wendy’s Chicken Club and KFC Famous Bowl) look twenty minutes old — granted, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s how it was when you got it.
The Taco Bell Nacho Grande seems to be the worst offender; I used to work at a central american restaurant, and arranging the nachos is a pain in the ass — probably something the minimum-wage jockeys wouldn’t devote much time to (also, they work on a limited time-span as well — nevermind pre-making the nacho-plates). Also, the new wraps at McDonald’s (’burritos’) are just plain sad.
._.
Professional photos vs general photos
So what?
The appearance means NOTHING. It’s the succulent goodness hidden below it’s ugly exterior you’re after.
…which doesn’t matter at all because fatties the world over gorge themselves on this slop with their eyes and minds closed.
Go to Japan and you will see as advertised McDonalds. People actually take pride in their job, even if it is burger flipper.
I almost always get smashed double cheeseburgers from McDonalds when I go there. they are still delicious.
I never really thought much about it until you pointed it out lol
Is there anyone left in the civilized world who is surprised by this shit?
OMFG! Fast food chains use more attractive looking models of their food in their marketing efforts?! STOP THE PRESSES! THIS NEEDS TO GO OUT IN AN EXTRA SPECIAL REPORT! ASAP!
ahahaha McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin looks close to the ad
WTF!! Why would anyone eat any of that stuff? It’s all crap - and actual crap may be better for you. I haven’t had fast food in more than 3 years. I do not miss it. I don’t knock anyone working in such a joint to make any effort at quality control - it’s just not worth it as most ppl that eat that garbage don’t care what it looks like anyway. As I am sure anyone that has posted complaints about what the food looks like does eat it regardless. Gross.
A lot of those don’t look too far off. And some of the others I’d have to say I’d rather have real version (most notably the muffin and croissant sandwiches).
Also, I’m angry because I’m hungry now and I just arrived at work without breakfast.
Wow wee! I’m amazed at the number of apologists in these comments. I must wonder if the people claiming that it isn’t this bad, or that they have never experienced this, or that blatantly false advertising is acceptable, are working for the offending corporations.
In my experience the bad pictures in this post are by far the typical product received from these chains. It has always been a source of extreme annoyance for me. To the point that ONE TIME a few years ago, I received a Wendy’s Double Cheeseburger that was similar to the picture. At the least, it did not appear to have been overridden by a bus.
I was so amazed by it that I called the manager and the person that made the sandwich to the front counter and congratulated the maker on their excellent job. Needless to say, the manager was shocked at the compliment.
I have never since had a sandwich ANYWHERE that was even vaguely similar to the advertised product. Everyone experiences this everyday and yet we continue to belly up to the counter and pay for burgers that look like the have been run over by a bus.
It’s too bad the Nachos Bell Grande (or Taco Bell, for that matter) no longer have the green onions. I’d have loved to see a Pizza Hut example as well, I worked for both them and Taco Bell back in the day.
And looking at all these photos reminds of why I need to stay away from fast food, so much salt, grease, and flavor, no matter which set of photos you look at.
Subway isn’t that bad. As for everthing else, yes, the food you recieve is far from the advertisements.
Your pictures make perfect sense. On TV, the people who work in the fast food places are thin and beautiful. In real life, the people who work in the fast food places are obese and retarded.
Sorry, but… If you actually look closely at those, many of them are very similar to their “studio pictures”. I can’t stand fast food, but bad photography and poor staging is just as disgusting. Just as many have mentioned here, most, if not all, of the pro shots are of models, not actual food - just like every other industry that uses imagery to showcase it’s products. Fire your photographer…
Important to consider is that fact that all the ‘real’ photos were quite poorly taken, and that a lot of the ‘real’ food seemed to be smashed by hands or taken togo and allowed to melt. If you had a decent photographer take a picture of the ‘real’ food while eating in just after it were prepared, I don’t think the results would be very dramatic…and honestly I was expecting to be much more impressed by the differences in your photos…but I wasn’t.
There’s two problems with food advertising vs. presentation:
1) ANY establishment, whether fast food or high-society restaurant, ALWAYS doctors the photos to make the food look more appetizing than it does in real life. It’s how they get you thinking about food.
2) As it’s already been pointed out, it all depends on how much that person cares about making the food presentable. Hell, I’ve been to McDonalds’ that make the food actually look quite appealing, while others slop together a Big Mac that looks worse than any of the photos here with too much mayo, not enough (etc. etc. etc.)
am I the only one thinking of Michael Douglas in “Falling Down” here? LOL
Great list, thanks for sharing!
It makes fatass people feel better about eating fatty fried animal parts. the drive thru is especially nice so the fatass can stay seated whilst ordering more fatass food. hooray.
Maybe due to the lowest expectations on the list, the Filet-o-Fish looks the closest to the picture.
but no one wants it, no matter how many catchy tunes McDonalds rolls out for it.
wow, dont have much to bitch & moan about? They are preparing FAST food, and most the workers are underpaid and unappreciated. They have to put up with whining little turds like the author of this crap.
Half of these pictures get thier flattened look from being stacked in bags with 20 other items some lard ass has ordered.
Why in the woulrd would ANYONE even expect a burger to be perfect? It would be cold by the time it was done, and the company would go broke wasting time on presentation.
Great photo comparisons! I’ve been talking about this for a long time and how it such false advertising on the visuals end. Great topic!
hmmmm maybe if the fast food pics were taken with a better camera… *rubs chin*
but seriously, I’ve long lowered my expectations on fast foods. I’ve learned at a young age that what you see on those posters is never, and I mean never, what you’re gonna get.
it was the Arby’s Sandwich and Taco Bell Nachos pics that made me laugh the most, by the way
at least the Big Mac and Fish Fillet’s pics look pretty close to the ads.
Yes, they specially prepare the food for the photos, and they use a lot of things that look like they would be good, but are actually inedible.
The “real” photos don’t look so bad; I’d hit that up.
“Well…if they hired english speaking American’s this wouldn’t happen!”
Jeffsters- What does this have to do with anything? Most fast food places are employed by highschool kids, or people that are desperate for a job, that’s a sorry excuse to post an ignorant racial comment.
That wendys chicken club made me bust up laughing when i saw the pic of the actual thing. ROFLMAO
Some of those real life shots don’t look too bad. But a good proportion of them look down right offensive.
well what you guys don’t see is that all these food come wrapped, especially the burgers, you can’t expect the cheese not to melt, and if you want fast food, you will have to make compromises somewhere, in this case appearance, your stomach won’t care how your food looks.
Food photographers and food stylist get paid a lot of money to make the food look appetizing. Sometimes what was photographed is not even edible. Often foods are sprayed down with oil from a mister to make it look fresher or tastier. Another common trick is to use Elmer’s white glue instead of milk because it the glue is white throughout whereas milk often has a very slight yellow cast.
Sort of like when I compare women on the cover of magazines to those in the real world.
So True Im glad to see this posted! We need to demand better making of the food we ordered. If I performed so under the bar at my Job I would be let go!
I, too, have noticed that it never looks like the picture. It has happened to me once (and just once) where it actually looked close to the photo. I was so impressed that I took a photo of it to preserve for posterity.
Notice how hardees isnt on the list, their food actually looks like the picture!
Mike - it’s “Americans” not “American’s”. Perhaps you should master the English language yourself first… glass houses, rocks etc.
Sorry Mike I meant Jeffsters!
Who cares what it looks like.
IT’S FAST FOOD!!!
If you want food that looks at the restaurant like it looks on TV, buy some fried chicken and STFU!
So who ate all the sandwiches? I wonder if any of those sandwiches were microwaved. That would surely do it.
you know WHY food on the menu board always looks better than the actual product? BECAUSE IT’S FAKE. seriously, there are people that spend their time creating perfect representations of whatever food they’re told to create for the sole purpose of taking pictures of it for advertisements. they’re called “food stylists”. look it up on google if you don’t believe me.
IMHO…
If I’m eating at a Fast Food Restaurant, I’m eating there because I need something quick, and I’m not horribly worried about it being super healthy. While I don’t want the food to be old, or moldy, or disgusting, I could honestly care less how it looks. If they spend the extra time to make it look just like it does in the commercials, it’s going to take 10 minutes to make a Big Mac instead of 2, and that means that if you factor in drive time, I now only have about 5 minutes left in my 30 minute lunch break to down the sandwich, fries, and a drink.
Besides, it’s going to look worse than that once I eat it, and even worse on it’s way out. So long as it tastes good and doesn’t make me sick, I’m good.
Amazing! Please post more of these pictures.
While I do admit that the final product doesn’t look ANYTHING like what’s advertised, keep in mind that you’re shooting all of them with a point and shoot (or anything with on camera flash) — If you had a seamless background and some soft lighting, it would actually look way better.
Still not anywhere close to the advertisement, for sure. But way better
Only the Wendy’s Roast Beef and the Whopper were incredibly disgusting looking. The rest don’t look like the picture because they are fit to eat. I personally would be mad if I got a burger or sandwich and the cheese wasn’t melted, which is why most of the actual items looked like they did. I don’t think it’s false advertising for the most part.
It is just like the desserts they show you in the restaurants. They are not for eating, they are for attracting you so that you order one. I once worked in a bar where they filmed a Millier Lite commercial. It wasn’t real bear in the glass. They had this liquid in the glass that they could put a hand mixer in and give it a head. They had lights and reflectors all around to make the beer shine. Same thing.
this just goes to show that you’re never going to make it as a fast food photographer. definitely work on your lighting to improve your portfolio.
Blog troll is successful because most of the “reality” pics are exaggerated. Look at the big mac for example, I’ve never had one that badly presented and I must have eaten hundreds of those things.
there is a whole lucrative business known as FOOD STYLING… I mean come on.
Yeah, I eat that crap too sometimes when I need the calories and that particular type of dietary fat. I don’t know…I think the best way to stay sane around the food concept is to ask the question: Are you currently in need of 1000 calories and 40 grams of saturated fat, merely to acquire the useful real benefits of 30 grams of protein and 40 grams of complex carbohydrates? If yes (like in the case of calorie deficit from long-term ongoing anaerobic exertion), then choke it down and who cares what it looks like, just get it in the system so it can go to work for you. If you don’t need that kind of calorie-to-fat/carb/protein ratio, then there’s plenty of other stuff to eat to get the stuff you need to be able to function, and you can likely make it look a lot more attractive if that’s important to you. Maybe my attitude is bad because as far as I’m concerned if you’re in a hurry to get some sustenance you might as well just grab what’s currently most useful to the physical/mental situation at hand, throw it in the blender with a little water, and slam it. Who cares what it looks or tastes like. Get it in and get it working for you, then you can get on to other things. I do see the point about the false advertising though — good point.
The camera, lighting, digital touch-up, maks a big difference in the representation - it’s not just about the sandwich.
Might have been nice to get the originating site;’s attribution right up front…because then folks might have realized this was originally done for laughs. Ah well, doesn’t change the message, which is to not get your hopes up!
I cant believe the number of posts saying “its actually not that bad”. Are you serious? You people must be 400 pounds and slobbering all over your disgusting selves.
PHOTOSHOPPED!!
Just kidding… Many of these examples are quite striking, but some look worse than they should because proper lighting is not present. You can make anything look bad by using a flash.
Looks fine. I’d eat any of it besides Arby’s. Caveat emptor.
For one, the advertised Subway sandiwch is the Italian BMT, not a turkey and ham. Also, the advertised Subway sandwich isn’t actually edible; they literally paint and glue the bread and fillings on the very edge of the sandwich. That six-inch isn’t exactly a shining achievement of sammich artistry (we definitely do a better job at our store), but folding the meats and balancing the lettuce/olives like that then wrapping it up while keeping everything tidy is literally impossible.
I have worked at three of the above restaurants: McDonald’s, Taco Bell, KFC. Taco Bell discontinued the use of green onions in all their stores because of the big food poisoning scare. As a person on the Taco Bell food line we are trained to place two hand fulls of chips or about 3 ounces on a platter, one 3 ounce ice cream scoop of beans one 1.5 ounce straight scoop of meat in centre, then two 1.5 squirts of Nacho Cheese down each side of the platter and then finishing off with a pinch of diced tomatoes (about ten pieces) and a single .75 ounce squirt of sour cream.. that one was horrid. The Breakfast Burrito from McD’s is really a waste of time.. the mixture inside the burrito is premixed and frozen in a bag that is defrosted and put on the burrito flour with one slice of cheese split in half. It is then wrapped up and microwaved to make it hot. The KFC Famous Bowl has two scoops of mashed potatoes (instant potatoes mixed with water and fake butter flavouring) corn (frozen and microwaved) a hand full of popcorn chicken (again frozen pre-battered and fried for three minutes) two ladles of brown gravy and ending with three finger pinch of three cheese blend. If you put a lid on that in about three to four minutes the cheese will melt.
“Well…if they hired english speaking American’s this wouldn’t happen!”
Haha! It’d just come to you half eaten.
“Um… marketing pretty much uses the same foods you get, except they spend hours assembling it, then lighting it, then photographing it.”
Actually, most of the foods you will see on product packaging and advertising are not actually edible at all - or at least will make you fall very ill if consumed. ‘Milk’ on cereal packaging is actually PVC glue, those sausages are glazed with varnish, and that turkey? that steam is actually a wet tampon nuked in a microwave and shoved inside and behind the bird during the shoot.
Just some examples.
Not sure what people have against Arby’s, worked their in the mid-90’s, while in high school. I’d would happily take an Arby or Subway sandwich over fast food burgers, any day.
Great, now I´m hungy!!
Here in Brazil we have the very same problem, at least we still can go for brazillian food (restaurants), in wich case, are very home made and similar to the picture above the counter.
LIES! YOU made them look awful.
Unfortunately we make sacrifices everyday……many times to our own folly.
We trade breakfast on the go for 15 more minutes in bed.
We trade higher fuel costs for the SUV.
We trade excercise for our favorite TV show.
We trade our kids for our careers.
We trade inteligence for accusatory and derogatory blog comments.
We trade democrats for republicans.
We trade email when face to face communication is best.
We trade short-sightedness for openness.
We trade our integrity to get ahead in life.
Therefore:
The fast food industry trades advertising dollars for incredible representation.
Sometimes, restraunts trade pride in their product for raw efficiency.
We trade image for substance.
We trade our expectation for acceptance.
We trade our health for convenience.
We trade what is right for what feels good.
I just traded 30 minutes of my time for reading all the above and now realize my folly.
Man …. guess I’m not hungry anymore !!!!!!!!!
Too bad the time is not written how long each picture took.
People need to be tricked everyday, or they wouldn’t spent their money
Psycho-logic-al
these are actually good examples. most of the time my burgers are misaligned squashed and otherwise unrecognizable clumps of food that I eat anyway.
and remember that the marketing versions of this food is NOT EDIBLE! Most of it isn’t real food, but re-creations of food look alikes. they also “dress them up” using polyurethane and other toxic chemicals. Look it up sometime, it’s photography not culinary.
My dad works in advertising. He told me about a commercial for a type of seasoning to be sprinkled on food (I won’t say which one) and he told me that they prepared the food in a different way than how it’s usually made (undercooked beef looks nicer) and they added things like varnish before filming.
Great post! I wonder what an actual Grilled Jesus would look like?
http://grilledjesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/grilledjesus-150×150.jpg
vs.
http://static-wear.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/172027__passion_l.jpg
Grilled
(=looks are deceiving. honestly i don’t t really care what food looks like. As long as it tastes good, is not pork, and its edible, then its cool with me……but ive always been saying how the food on the menues are always more good looking then the ones that come in a wraper, and the evidence is above, THANKS A MILLION =)…ima add this to my facebook.=)
Well, I go either way. It depends on who’s working there, what time you go, and which place you go, if you go to McDonalds or no, hahaha. I do admit, the only place that actually did poorly almost every time I go there, is McDonalds. I live near Fort Myers beach, and this McDonalds messes up on the orders all the time. They even cheat you out of half the fries all the time, and they really need to clean the coke machine, the soda is nasty. It makes me upset, yes, but what good does it do? Even during the day, peek hours, they screw up all the time, and it makes me mad. So, guess what, I don’t go there anymore. However, Burger King always gave us good food, and the right portions. And, it always looks good as the ad portrays, and is juicy. And their fries aren’t cooked is some awful transfat oil that leaves a bad taste in your mouth like McDonalds, once you eat it, everything takes like shit anyways. As for Wendys, they really need some better buns than the ones they have now just fall apart.
Mercruix, the way you said you make the burrito is incorrect. You described the instructions to make the fajita which has been discontinued from McDonalds for about two years. I used to work in McDonalds as well as subway. It is very difficult to keep a sandwich made at Subway in one piece with all that stuff in it, especially when it is being wrapped. When you work at McDonalds, you have about 45 seconds to work on each sandwich you make, trying the best to make it as presentable, fresh, and hot as possible. You cannot expect it to look like an advertisement in 45 seconds.
Ahaha, these are great! I was literally laughing as I scrolled down the page.
What’s missing is that new mini-burger @ BK… it comes in “pairs,” the picture shows two half inch thick patties on mini buns, but what I got were two mini buns with 1/8th inch patties. At that rate, one cow would provide about 10,000 burgers… actually more!. AND also, the Wendy’s bacon cheeseburger on the cheap menu has a similarly thin patty. WHERE’S THE BEEF?
Mniami mniami……
Print and eat….
K,
I beg to differ, sir/ma’am. We most certainly can blame the companies for having stupid and/or unmotivated workers. The company hired them, after all, and since they offer absolutely zero incentives for good work, there’s no reason any of their already-dim employees should put forth an iota of extra effort.
Now, if McJobs actually offered something career-wise, perhaps we’d see a marked improvement in service quality and product presentation.
But they never will. Profits before quality. *shrug*
I disagree.
It isn’t false advertising, because any rational person would immediately realize that none of the meals presented in the commercial were prepared quickly in even the slightest sense of the word. Then taking into account a bit of elmer’s glue and some hair spray, you wouldn’t want to eat the food in the commercial at all.
I also don’t kid myself. If I’m going to eat at a fast food joint, I know full well to expect the worst. I’m not surprised when I get a McDouble (made to order) and I am presented with two greasy 1/10 lb circles of meat with a squirt of ketchup and mustard slapped between a bun and some pickles. I am no more disgusted with the meal presented than my choice to eat there.
It’s called advertising, moron. Look it up. Of course they’re not going to display pictures of how it really looks… would you buy it if you did? Dry your tears, eat the sandwich, and shut the hell up.
One in ten Americans have logged time behind a McDonald’s or other fast food counter. Not all of the time are “burger-flippers” dropouts and lowlifes. There is the odd college kid needing to pay for his next semester, or the high schooler who is saving up to buy a car. And, because of the economy, there are workers at McDonalds who have been laid off, or cannot find a better job.
The food prepared in the ad is supposed to look tasty, and let you expect what the flavour the food would be, depending on the ingredients. Some foods, such as the KFC bowl or the Chicken Club(which I almost threw up over), look absolutely disgusting, and if put on the ads, no one would buy it. But it tastes like it should, doesn’t it?
Let’s say you go to grandma’s house, and she makes a disgusting, burnt casserole. You don’t want to hurt her feelings, so you close your nose and go for a big gulp. That would be situation where you are forced to eat horrendous food. Fortunately, you don’t have to eat at McDonald’s or Burger King. No one seriously expects to get ad-quality food. Sometimes, when you order alot of ingredients, they tend to slip and fall, or slide around.
McDonald’s is a low paying job. Money motivates. In order for your employess to take pride in the presentation, they need to feel like they are treated with respect. In order to earn more money, the prices of the food would go up. Honestly, who would buy an eight dollar burger, good looking or not? The company would loose business and shut down . Now someone else around the block would buy this hasty concoction for four dollars. In this business, it’s not about people or employees. It’s about cost.
I’m pretty sure a blind person, being told the ingredients of a Southwest Taco Salad, think about what that flavor would be like, bought it, and ate it, it would taste just like he was told it would taste.This is food were talking about, not a beauty pageant. You can see the two “beef” patties, pickles, lettuce, and sauce in the ad. Since you can’t eat the ad itself, you head on over, expecting this flavour you saw on the ad. Eaten, it satisfies, and tastes as expected. Looked at, and it looks like a mess. Food goes in the mouth.
In this great game of capitalism, you’re either supplying, or buying. Ads and marketing schemes get you to pay for what looks good in the ad. Suppliers of these fast food companies sell to them at very low cost. The more burgers made and sold, the more profit. They never have time to make food look good.You the consumer should never assume the foods to look great just for you. You’re not special. You’re order number 1126. Not Anthony who doesn’t want bruised lettuce, Or Jake the perfectionist, who wants a spick-and-span burger. Take your food and leave.
Preparation of the food is wasted time, and a burden they cannot afford. The more food made, the more profit. McDonald’s, through cutting corners, is excelling in this down-trodden economy, and to the jobless, a bittersweet beckon of hope. Just ask one in ten Americans.
This is hilarious! More so because its true to life.
I can’t say I ever went and purchased a fast food sandwich because of the advertisements, but the photos of ads vs. reality are a riot!
I am amazed at the difference of those pictures! Though you are right. It is rare that a picture of any food - esp. fast food looks like what is delivered.
My favorite fast food is in-n-out — but now that I think of it, their fries look like their pictures, but the burgers don’t quite (though I think they are a bit closer to the pictures than the ones shown above.
I suppose it is good for the health .. and better for the waistline to not eat fast food in general.
My husband and I were just having this discussion this morning as we ate our “sad looking” sausage burrito from Mc Donalds. The flavor was good, but it was truly a sad little lump wrapped in paper. Good job. LOL!
photos don’t look so bad!
So ads are misleading? wow, i´d never have guessed so…
although i get your point i don´t think there´s anything special about it, no matter if it´s burgers or anything else…that´s just the way the world is, or do you really believe celebrities are all that hot?
Quit complaining. Just don’t buy it.
LOL hahah this is so damned hilarious!!!! and I totally agree with Maria wtf Jeffsters? there’s no need to be mean n narrow-minded but seriously if things were always as advertised the world would be suc h a better place
#3 looks like the closest match. However really to me none, the advertised or the actual look that appetizing. Just imagine if they did advertise what the actual above look like, would they be able to live up to making something of that standard even.
Hi, I live in Poland, burgers from McDonalds and Burger King in my country look usually much better than on your pictures.
Quit complaining. Continue enjoying it.
these are prepared immediately, so presentation are expected not to be as good as what we see on posters. it will be unacceptable if there are deviations when it comes to promised ingredients, because those are what we are paying for.
this is why food stylists make $2000 a day
I’m homeless and looking at this on a computer at the library. Any of that food looks good, except for the fish sandwhich, especially as I don’t have $5 to buy it. Can I lick the cheese out of your cardboard container? Can I have the fries at the bottom of the bag?
hey how about a dollar so I can get something off the value meal? Don’t tell me to get a job - I gots one. I am the mascot for http://www.street-people.com but that money never seems to last long
So silly and so inedible
Go America! Killing it’s population by serving their people what can be considered worse than a eating a live beetle from a rain forest!
You had me at the dollar menu….what the hell kind of burger are you eating that cost as much as a pack of gum?
Cha Ching for the fast food industry!
Someone posted “[joking] the best photographers arin the world are the ones who shoot for McDonalds”. This is actually pretty true. People who can take pictures of food - real food, and make it look good are very good photographers.
Now, those who make shots of burgers for fast food adverts? They’re both good sculptors and photographers because what you see is usually *not* food at all. It’s even sometimes made at a larger scale than the actual product. That being said, it’s just a representation of the ideal, it doesn’t have to match exactly. I eat it for the convenience and the taste.
i get some of this food from these places and they don’t look like this so i don’t know where you live but where i come from the food looks a lot better than this
In all honesty, I can defend Wendy’s just cause every time I go there the sandwiches are presented very nicely. I rarely have complaints with it. As for Mcdonalds I couldn’t back them up.
“I tend to find that A&W delivers on the advertised goods.”
Uh, no they don’t.
dude they all look like they’re barfing.
It should be illegal, a trading standards breach, to call that stuff “cheese”. It is not cheese. KFC famous bowl … is that really battered fried shaped chicken pieces floating on a bed of baked beans topped with melted cheese? And we wonder why people are getting fat?
Actually, I’ve been to food photoshoots, They tend to not actually use the real food, because the shoots can take hours, and the food will go bad in that time, (lettuce turn brown, bread get soggy etc)
Also there are no beans in a famous bowl. potatoes, chicken corn gravy and cheese. Patton oswald has an awesome bit on that. check it out.
The point he’s trying to make is that some of them look vastly different from their advertised counterparts. Some of them don’t look bad, but I’ve felt the same way before. I haven’t eaten fast food in years, but, particularly McDonald’s, in the commercials you can *at least* see the meat; if you order a regular cheeseburger from McD’s all you see is the bun, the damn patty is so small.
the arbys beef n chedder melt yea it looks like that here too but it tastes like how you would expect from the picture its freakin delicious
KFC famous bowl
whoah!!shocking!!
I’m a little offended by some of you guys. Not all fast food workers are high school dropouts. The managers have to have a degree to run a McDonalds and I know many excelling students who have started in fast food who are now successful individuals.
I think the worst case of what is advertised to what you actually receive has to be MacDonalds Big Mac, hereby re-named Weiner Mac (at least the Burger King Whopper lives up to its name).
Oh and the crushed buns probably came from the poor minimum wage worker who filled the orders.
Food featured in ads are usually different than what they really have at the stores. i guess it’s one thing we have to live with.
A lot of the difference in pictures is due to the fact that the photos are taken of COLD food. Oil is then strategically applied to make the dih look hot and shiny, without and of the wilt and imperfections of hot steamy food.
so controversial and true. looks delicious on posters…
I had a friend who was a photographer. he did some photograpohy for some local food stores and the food in the pictures is always doctored and usually NOT edible. dish soap in coffee to give it some bubbles. roasted turkey enhanced with felt tip markers to give it that perfectly golden brown look. and whip cream just will not hold up under the lights. You are not very smart if you expect the foods to look like the pictures.
Great post…… fast food makes me sick I don’t know how anyone can eat that stuff.
This must be American food since most of that stuff would be illegal to sell in most parts of the world.
No wonder you yanks are fat bastards!
If I were a president, i would prohibit fastfood restaurants to cheat.
Fastfood is evil. Read “Fastfood nation” by Eric Schlosser.
wen u look d ads. its absolutely FAB, but wen dey serve it to you sad but true its so disgusting but wen ur hungry it doesnt matter wat it looks like, u know dey do fast service for the sake of the starving human…haha
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Next you’ll be telling me people in magazines don’t look like that in real life, this is madness!
Maybe the food would look better in your pics if you had proper studio lighting like these fast-food firms use, then maybe the comparison would be on the same level.
totally understand what you mean, but come on… if you’re still thinking you’re going to get what’s in the picture, you’re deeply in denial.
McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and all the others that there might be, they mass produce plastic crap for us to eat, there’s no time for the Keith Floyd touch.
besides, those pictures work, you’re still eating aren’t you?
Dude and Dudettes,
If you don’t like fast food, don’t buy it tards, HELLO !