A Healthy Picture

A healthy picture. Some how, that does not sound quite right. Is it some sort of variation on that old saying: ?You are the picture of health?? No, actually, it has quite the unique and interesting meaning. A healthy picture has to do with photographs of food products. But, not just any pictures; these are pictures that are designed for a specific purpose. They are set up to make the food look very healthy, tasty and attractive.

For many years, restaurants have faced the challenge of drawing in customers. Now, some, specifically the big chains (e.g. McDonald?s, Burger King) are pretty much well-known, and so are more in a competition to increase sales. With others, smaller chains and local no-name restaurants, they have to do something to generate interest. One way is with colorful advertisements in newspapers and magazines. This presents a further challenge: making the food look very appealing and delicious. It is not enough to just cook a good meal, it must look good. In fact, there is an old saying that says, in any meal, the first bite is with the eyes. In many of the very high end restaurants, the ones where you can easily pay over a hundred dollars per person for a dinner, the presentation of each course is an integral part of the meal.

Over the years, various advertising companies have come up with little tricks to make food look especially appealing. In some cases, you would not want to eat the food they create! Some tricks are simple: placing clear glass balls in a bowl of soup to make the solid chunks (the meat, alphabets, noodles etc.) float to the surface. With other items, it might mean undercooking a burger or steak to make it appear especially juicy; or spraying something on the food to make it glisten under the lights.

Today, there are actual web sites where companies can go to specifically but so called healthy pictures. Companies spend considerable time and effort to create photographs of fruits, vegetables, meats, grains etc. that highlight the best features of the produce, and make them look tasty and good. They, of course, create similar pictures for various dishes, usually at the specific request of a client. After all, a delicious looking chicken parmesan would be fine for an Italian restaurant, but a Chinese restaurant would probably prefer something to encourage purchases of their orange chicken and noodles.

frank j vanderlugt owns and operates http://www.healthypicture.com 2 Healthypicturecom