Bill Gates Wants Us to Eat 100% Synthetic Beef.

Bill Gates has a big idea to fight climate change. The Microsoft cofounder and chair of the investment fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures recently suggested that “all rich countries should move to 100 [percent] synthetic beef” in an interview with MIT Technology Review.

Why is Gates, a direct and indirect investor in brands like Beyond Meats and Impossible Foods, pushing for synthetic meat—particularly synthetic beef—as a climate solution?

As The Western Journal points out, the Food and Agricultural Organization predicted a global shortage of protein-rich foods following the COVID-19 pandemic wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and approximately one billion people in the world suffer from protein deficiency, according to the Cornell Alliance for Science.

In wealthier nations, then, synthetic beef is a good place to start to solve that protein problem—and slow the effects of climate change, too. Here’s Gates, via the Technology Review:

“You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time. Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand. But [...] the politics [are challenging]. There are all these bills that say it’s got to be called, basically, lab garbage to be sold. They don’t want us to use the beef label.”