We all have seen it and our mouths water at the sight of it: food porn, they call it.  Photos of ready-to-devour delicacies, in process or on the table.  My unscientific research shows that, after dogs and cats, steaming contents of sauté pans and dinner plates is the most popular subject of photos posted by one’s Facebook friends.  (If dogs and cats were on Facebook, we would no doubt be inundated with pics of dog dishes and dead mice.)

We respond to photos of food uncritically, as if we had prepared it ourselves — it never occurs to us that the dish might be too salty or too bland, or that the beef is rancid or the shellfish undercooked, or that the dish contains hazardous levels of aluminum or arsenic or kalamata olives.  No, it all looks delicious.  Photos can’t lie.  So sit down and eat up.