Comment by bluGill

I know someone who was a cook for a food photographer. they always made 10x what was called for. For one salad in the photo she made 10 so they could choose the best looking one, then a lot of time was spent adjusting exactly where each tomato was. Likewise make 10 pies, take a slice our of each, then the artist uses a rubber scrapper to put the right lines in the side of each slice, then choose the best to photograph. It was all real food.

I'm not saying that they don't also do fake food, but a lot of real food is used as well.