Instead Of Using Milk, Cereal Commercials Like To Trick Us By Using Glue

At some point in your life, you have probably wondered how certain foods look so good in commercials, but so… well, bad in real life. A McDonald’s burger might look like the ideal burger in a commercial, but you know when you pull it out of the bag it’s going to be flat and soggy. It can lead you to wonder exactly what is going on behind the scenes of these ads… and like most of the entertainment industry, things aren’t how they seem. For example: Instead of using milk, cereal commercials like to trick us with a surprising ingredient, and they certainly aren’t the only ones doing that.

There are lots of little tricks advertisers use to keep food looking absolutely perfect on set, and unfortunately, almost none of them make this food edible. So yes, that gorgeous shot of an ice cream cone might look ready to eat, but if you knew what was really in it, you’d probably change your mind about that.

When a company is putting together a photo of a bowl of cereal, they don’t use milk to make the picture look amazing.

The truth is significantly more disgusting than that. They actually fill a bowl with Jello, then top it with a thick layer of glue. Yes, glue. Pieces of the cereal are then carefully put on top of the glue, keeping everything in place.

As you likely know, in a real bowl of cereal and milk, the cereal doesn’t just sit perfectly on top of the milk — it sinks down and floats, looking less appetizing than in the commercials.

And there’s more where that came from! In order to make a stack of pancakes look fluffy and tall, companies stick pieces of cardboard in between the pancakes to prop them up. And that picture of a piece of pie with a lovely little whipped cream swirl? It’s shaving cream. Yuck.

Check out the rest of the secrets in this video:

These photography secrets don’t exist just to fool us into buying something that is different than it seems to be. Sure, it may feel like false advertising, and in some ways it is, but it’s also necessary. Food tends to do what it wants and it can be hard to control, especially on a busy set with hot lights. These little tricks allow photos to actually happen — because really, do you want to look at a picture of a flat stack of pancakes? The other way looks so much better!