Food Photography - Tips and Tricks that make your mouth water

That luscious-looking roasted turkey has been washed in dishwashing detergent, cooked briefly, painted with ten coats of food coloring, and blowtorched (to give it that lovely roasted look!)

Those natural-looking bunches of grapes are sprayed with baby powder deodorant.

The molded cream pudding is hard as a rock, because it contains ten times the amount of gelatin than a regular pudding would. (We don't want it to melt under those hot lights!)

The ice you see in that frosty beverage is most likely acrylic "ice," that refracts light better than real ice and doesn't melt.

The rich-looking syrup being poured over pancakes? Motor oil works well here.

Like that milkshake? It's a combination of food colouring, and whipped shortening! And don't go for the ice cream instead - it's shortening too.

That great looking bowl of cereal on the cover of your cereal box is actually cereal and white glue, instead of milk, to prevent the cereal from getting soggy. (No one wants to buy a box of mush!)

Those veggies that look as if if they were just picked and dew-covered? Mix glycerine into a spray bottle with water and the drops will stay on for about 15 minutes. (Glycerin can be used to give any food a juicy, glistening appearance.)

Want your Barbecued ribs to look mouth-watering? Half-cook the ribs, paint with wood stain and BBQ sauce.

Those french fries in a carton? Each one has been individually selected, from hundreds of fries, and secured to a styrofoam base inside the package so that they stand up straight and fan out nicely.

That hamburger that makes you want to run to your nearest fast-food outlet, is the product of a process that includes:

• frying the hamburger for 20 seconds on each side
• using red-hot skewers pressed against the meat to give it that "grilled" look
• painting the hamburger with food colouring to give it that plump, brown, juicy appearance.
• picking the best out of hundreds of hamburger buns (strategically gluing on extra sesame seeds if necessary)
• lining the buns with cardboard so that they don't get soggy
• snipping and spreading the burger from behind so that it looks bigger in the bun
• selecting only the most perfect condiments and securing them in place with toothpicks
• securing the top of the bun to the hamburger with toothpicks
• The finishing touch to a hot food photo-shoot? Artificial 'steam' placed behind the food to give it that 'fresh from the oven' appearance.