Think about it: someone has to invent your favorite foods. Grilled cheese doesn't grow on trees. Chicken fingers don't sprout from the ground. These foods get invented by people who are God's gift to earth.

One man, Tom Ryan, invented not one...not two...but no less than EIGHT of some of the most beloved foods in America.

Pizza Hut "Lover's Line"

Cheese Lover's, Pepperoni Lover's, and Meat Lover's pizzas were all a result of Tom Ryan. In 1988. Ryan was brought in as Director of New Products and came out with the line as a way to resonate with customers.

"Meat Lover's, Pepperoni Lover's, Cheese Lover's"”all those products were kind of an early win; it was like hitting a bunch of singles, but we scored a lot with those singles," Ryan said.

Continue reading to see what McDonald's product you can thank Tom Ryan for, as well!

Stuffed Crust Pizza

Did you know stuffed crust was made out of spite? Ryan was called out by the chief operating officer after the Lover's Line because 'everything to do with pizza had now been done.'

"It made me the good kind of angry where it's like, You think so, huh? And then the next year I did stuffed crust, which was sort of like, take that!" Stuffed crust made over one billion dollars in the first year alone.

McDonald's McGriddles

"We basically took the Grand Slam Denny's breakfast and put it in your hand," Ryan said in an interview. "And the only little piece of technology we needed was how do you get the syrup inside the pancakes so you don't have to have syrup in one hand, sandwich in the other [when you're driving]."

McDonald's Fruit 'N Yogurt Parfait

"So the idea I had for the yogurt parfait was to work the fat out of the yogurt, replace it with a little more sugar to make it more palatable for American [tastes]," Ryan says. "And then to present it more like a dessert than something healthy."

Smashburger Burgers

Tom Ryan not only invented the Smashburger classic burger, but he also has a hand in all the local burgers as well.

"The combination of the quality of the ingredients and the smashing process lets us cook a burger really uniformly. So even though it's cooked evenly through, it eats like a rare, juicy burger, which I think is brilliant," Ryan says. "In some markets, our local burger is the number one best-seller ahead of the classic cheeseburger. And in markets where it's not, it's usually number two or three."

Which of these foods is your favorite? Let us know!