If that shocked you, you really should do more comparisons between food photos for marketing and the real thing. Sometimes the food in the marketing/ad photo isn't even edible thanks to the fact that it's made from styrofoam - or if it is real food at one time, it may have a nice coating of high-gloss floor coating to give it that extra-delicious look.

Blleeaaaarrrggghhh....

Yes indeed...All in favor of making companies advertise with a *real photo* of their product, as opposed to props and CG? We could call it the Nasty Fake Prime-Rib Act of 2007, in honor of this...thing. -M.

It looks like it's spent a few months in Homer Simpson's fridge.

umm...shitty goodness.

The problem with real food in photos is that the lighting they use in the studios is like 20 times brighter than the sun. It would basically cook the food before the photog could get there to take a shot. Stuff like ice cream would simply melt under the intense lighting. Most of the food pictures you see in actuality are nothing even close to what you think they are. Add in apathetic staff hired by lazy and ignorant franchisers and you've got quite a difference between the commercial and your plate.

My stomach lurched after seeing that. I just finished eating. Thanks Consumerist!

I had one of these the other day, and while it wasn't worth the $$, it did look a lot more like the first picture than the second one. Whoever shot the pic of the second one ought to consider visiting a different Quizno's location.

.....See, the sandwich in the second picture IS actual prime rib. It has this wonderous reputation, but it is LOADED with ugly white FAT! And that's why it tastes sooooo gooooood! When a dull foodservice meat slicer gets ahold of of a chunk of rib roast, it's going to maul it into grayish, reddish, jello-like slime. You can't even use a good, strong marinade on prime rib, or it will disintegrate while cooking. It's a poor choice for thin-slicing, and someone in Quizno's product development should have realized this... The waste in the kitchen is going to be unbelievable! Or else the store owner won't allow $9 a pound fat to be thrown away, and it ends up in poor Ben's sandwich. Most thin-sliced deli beef is from round or maybe eye of round. It's tough enough to hold up under the slicer!

.....A 9 dollar sub is just a sign of the times. I've been bitching about the ubiquitous 10 dollar Orlando burger for years!

Had a few of these. The (ahem) reason for the higher price is that there's double meat on them. If they had a regular meat portion I'd probably continue to get them but they don't ... yet. It's a LOT of damn meat.

Chelsea writes:

"everyone seems highly upset that the advertisements don't use the "real" food. Well, I am almost postive that advertisers have to use the actual product that they are selling in the commercial. So that sandwich is actually exactly what they say it is - no styrofoam. Of course it's been gone over by a stylist and probably made up in however they make food up to look really nice, but technically that is what you could be buying, kind of. The rest of the food doesn't have to be real though, like in chocolate syrup commercials where the ice cream is Crisco."

Ashley is, of course, one hundred percent correct. By US law, advertisers are legally required to use the same product in pictures as they are advertising.

I once read an account of a woman who took pictures of food for a living. If she photographed a plate of frozen broccoli, she would sort through hundreds of bags, taking out the individual pieces that looked best. That's the way it's done: they'll make hundreds of the same dish. Nothing wrong with that, but I find the discord between the Subway's Prime Rib and the real one pretty appalling