Career Option: Food Stylist?

When is ice cream not really ice cream?  Shockers!  Food photography is slightly deceiving but with the best intentions though.  Nowadays, everyone can claim to be a food photographer with the accessibility to stellar cameras with low prices. All you need to do is focus, right?  But it's another thing to be a food stylist.

 To be a food stylist, you need to understand food chemistry, food product development, and good photography.  All that needs to revolve in a creative mind. Oh, wait. I can do all that. Hahaha.  This is an incredibly hard path to follow as everything is based on your portfolio and your past clients.  It's intimidating!  It would be a dream to travel worldwide and take food photographs armed with all my technical food knowledge to get the best possible picture. I've been researching local food stylists and hoping to contact them in the hopes of becoming an apprentice.  Here are some that I fell in love with:

Katie Christ: http://www.katiechrist.com/
Ann Belden: http://www.annbelden.com/

My personal favorites whom I would love to work with:
Randy Mon: http://www.randymon.com/
-His work is absolutely incredible.  It would be sensational to be mentored by him. The effortless look with simple crisp focusing.  I am actually drooling because of these photos.  I love his bio story as well and he seems like an easy-going person with a humorous attitude.

Susan Devaty: http://susandevaty.com/index.html
-Something about her work makes me feel very cozy and comforted.  I have no idea why though.  My first impression of course.  There are some images where I can see the fakes added which are funny.  Her portfolio is very extensive and her client list is impressive as well as Randy's.

I stumbled upon this article from PBS kids about the advertising techniques food stylists use and how we should not believe what we see.  Just an example of what some food stylists choose to do.  Here is the website from PBS: http://pbskids.org/dontbuyit/advertisingtricks/foodadtricks.html
Like every industry, there are different degrees of a person.  Some food stylists are food purists (using the actual food) to the extreme of food manipulators (using decoys as much as possible).  Definitely an option and again, I just need to do something with my life and degree.  I cannot sit here with idle hands.  I'm getting antsy!