They usually use wax stand-ins for the food products. Nothing edible in the ad pics. Well, nothing edible in either pics.
The food is never going to look as good as the PROP food used in the commercials, but most of the reality food was just plain assembled sloppily. Back in the day (way back at this point) when I worked at McDonald's, you could be written up for serving up food that looked like that. And they actually it did too, three strikes and you have to explain to you next employer how you lost a job at McDonald's.
Subway seemed to fare the best.
peter
I watched a show on this one time - on how they make the food in commercials look so good. They use all these chemicals and stuff to make the smoke come out and look perfect. It was pretty interesting.