Given arbitrary integers $k$ and $d$ with $0 \leq 2k \leq d$, we construct a
Gorenstein Fano polytope $\Pc \subset \RR^d$ of dimension $d$ such that (i) its
Ehrhart polynomial $i(\Pc, n)$ possesses $d$ distinct roots; (ii) $i(\Pc, n)$
possesses exactly $2k$ imaginary roots; (iii) $i(\Pc, n)$ possesses exactly $d
- 2k$ real roots; (iv) the real part of each of the imaginary roots is equal to
$- 1 / 2$; (v) all of the real roots belong to the open interval $(-1, 0)$.
In this paper, it is proved that, if a toric ideal possesses a fundamental
binomial none of whose monomials is squarefree, then the corresponding
semigroup ring is not very ample. Moreover, very ample semigroup rings of
Lawrence type are discussed. As an application, we study very ampleness of
configurations arising from contingency tables.