Civilization was built on innovation. Industrious people using intellect and imagination to create something that didn’t exist before; something that ultimately became indispensable. The printing press. The cotton gin. The George Foreman Grill.

The main driver of innovation used to be need. Copying Bibles by hand took a long time, and there were lots of godless heathens to convert. I’d expound more on the cotton gin but I was never taught exactly what it does, just that it was invented by Eli Whitney, who I suspect also invented PR.

That kind of ingenuity and hard work is still going strong, providing us with inventions that better society and make our lives easier and sometimes even longer.

That’s not to say that innovation always does those things. Sometimes, it does just the opposite, mostly in service of greed, attaining power, or compensating for pitiful penises.

Very often, innovation is simply driven by brands trying to stay relevant, and therefore profitable, by convincing us we want something we never even thought of.

One category that outpaces most others in terms of innovation is food. In fact, food companies are binging on it.

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