Feeding Bill Gates a Fake Burger (to save the world)

that's me that's the richest man in the world and that's the burger I just made him but there's a catch the patty in that burger is made from this stuff and the reason I can eat it raw is just made entirely from plants as you guys know every year I dedicate one of my twelve videos to showcase how clever people are using science and technology to change the world for the better so for example two years ago was a paper centrifuge a microscope that could diagnose malaria for 51 cents versus ten thousand dollars for traditional equipment and then last year was a magical powder that helps poor countries turn contaminated muddy water into clear drinking water that's also when I first met bill and earned my forever respect after I microwaved up some pizza rolls for him and he ate them like a champ I've been loosely following the progress of plant-based meat for a couple years now an allegedly it looks and tastes like meat yet it's made from plants now at the top of this video I feel like I should start with a confession I eat meat like kind of a lot I've had some form of meat at pretty much every meal since I was a kid my favorite genre of food is barbecue and so be that dosnt may as a firm believer in the scientific method I feel like it's time for me just to really buckle down and get to the bottom of this plant-based meat thing and so today on my quest for answers I'm looking at three main questions number one how does it taste and not just that but how does it look and feel and smell how successfully does it trick my brain into thinking this is real meat number two is it good for me if it does trick my brain what the heck is in it is it just some kind of like lab chemical concoction and also how does it compare to like the protein from a real burger number three is it good for the planet and on this one I have a hunch that it is but is it like myth that's a little better or is it like a hundred times better now I should say a big motivation for me and something I think even my fellow meat eaters could agree on is that the concept of factory farms isn't great the whole cows that have never seen a blade of grass thing and pigs which by most accounts are smarter than dogs that live their entire lives indoors on crowded concrete these factories are efficient they're optimized for driving down costs not for animal well-being and I'm not trying to be a downer it's just something I don't like to think about when I'm eating my in-and-out burger or chick-fil-a and it's a lame excuse but I feel like I sort of never have had a good alternative option I mean historically this is veggie burger and nothing about this works as a burger for me but in recent years the strategy shifted the target people exactly like me basically try and make it as close to real meat as possible which reduces friction for trying a plant-based option so their goal is if I'm going meatless at the summer barbecue instead of a quinoa salad I can still enjoy the full experience of a burger with my friends and so on that note let's get right into question number one throw this puppy on the grill definitely sounds like a burger and even smells like it and you're giving like the fat dripping down which is causing the flames to come up so so far the experience feels pretty analogous to just grilling a burger when I looked the fork it definitely tastes like there is meat on this fork alright this cuts and feels exactly like a real burger but before I officially taste it I kind of want to know exactly what's in there and to do that I'm gonna fly out to the two companies who are the leader in this space beyond meat and impossible foods appeal me the first thing they showed me where the labs where they do all their research are these actual are these actors or these are real scientists and using this yeah this feels like Jurassic Park you know and like if the two are in yeah and right out of the gate they put my mind at ease and showed me a tray of all the main stuff that makes up their burgers apparently they work on not just the taste but they have teams of researchers working on the texture color the smell the grilling sound even the same amount of calories and protein as a meat burger their goal is to make it as frictionless as possible for people like me to make the switch so they have these for the color coconut and sunflower oil for the fat so it sizzles on the grill potatoes for carbohydrates and then these for the protein the majority coming from yellow piece these burgers are better for you because they have no cholesterol but they do have saturated fat from the coconut oil so you shouldn't think of this as healthy is like a plain salad with no dressing after getting the full tour I was feeling pretty good so it's time for the real test in the kitchen I've intentionally kept my taste buds virgin okay great I haven't tasted it and I had opportunities like no no wait no pressure next week I'm going to meet Bill Gates yeah and I have to cook for him you're like a professional chef right I am in the next like 20 minutes you need to transfer all that knowledge from your brain into mine okay we started with their Italian sausage made of course just from plants and chef Chris showed me some power moves to impress bill with on the grill I'm so scared Cheers okay Cheers even putting flavors side I think bill will be okay with a bit little bit of a juice there's no way I would have guessed I wasn't actually eating real meat that's pretty good cheers Cheers that's really good new one more taste this friggin good thank you next up was their burger which it turns out was equally amazing genuinely when you could surround it with burgers stuff it's really hard to tell they're like a way to tell my next year puts to impossible foods and they actually let me make a burger myself just from the ingredients in these poles so the first thing that we're gonna do is add the water to the soy protein and then we're gonna add the potato protein the next thing we're gonna put in is our magic ingredient which do you know what of this is red number five so this is our magic ingredient it's called heme which is short for hemoglobin team is responsible for making meat taste like meats that's found in every living plant and animal you can get heme from soy plant I see you don't have to get it from animal next we added the cellulose based culinary binder to hold everything together and then finally the coconut and sunflower oils do you have you done any pastry work in your love tons of it okay so you're gonna like fold on my pace you work straining through you literally just made the impossible burger yourself like 5:05 both yeah one of them was water one of them was water so now I think it's time to cook one of these up 96% of the folks who are ordering our product are self-identified meat-eaters I'm definitely your target demo I grew up like if the meal didn't have meat in it it wasn't a meal when it delivers in that same characteristic that meat does it really proves the point that we're providing a no compromises alternative for those meat eaters out there to make a different choice this raised an interesting point these been cleverly marketed with being a real man because real men need their protein that's what a man eats made from stuff guys need like a the truth is even meat-eaters like me get roughly half their protein a day from plants by eating things that contain some kind of beans peas nuts or whole grains like corn rice and oats in fact many high-performance athletes are switching to a plant-based diet because studies have shown it can help produce measures of inflammation by almost 30 percent in just three weeks and inflammation makes it harder to recover after a workout so if a plant-based diet is good enough for Arnold Schwarzenegger Kyrie Irving Lewis Hamilton Venus and Serena Williams Nate Diaz and a growing butt ton of others it's probably good enough for me and my weekly rec league soccer game you can ultimately utilize this in any way you would use traditional ground beef tacos lasagna meatballs name it they're so good this is a plant-based burger and look at the mess I'm Megan so obviously I thought their burgers were also really good but I felt like I wanted a larger sample size before I felt truly confident feeding bill so I invited some friends to a local restaurant that serves impossible burgers and the thing is you can't always trust adults because they might just change their answer to be nice kids on the other hand are brutally honest so we ordered them plant-based burgers to but my dad neglected to mention it to them before he what do you think there's no meat in that girl your life plants I was a plant burger you ain't a quiet burger it just tastes like extra juicy and so feeling more confident than ever it was time to visit bill put my culinary skills to the test and see if he could help me answer my final question so I'm back in Bill's kitchen he's gonna be here in an hour and I need some groceries so I've been working hard in your kitchen perfect and I kind of wanted to talk to you about clam based meat and I thought maybe we could try them out as well sure but as a control I know you're a big fan of Dick's burgers so it kind of cleanse the palate I thought we could just bite that's the real thing the real thing as a non Seattle native I've got to say I think this may be an acquired taste yeah you get used to certain burger and so now it's time for my cooking what do you think it's quite good I mean that's light-years away from what they used to make like the traditional veggie burger right you know the quality is gonna keep getting better the the plant-based guys are not done innovating eventually they claim you won't be able to tell the difference next up was my killer bratwurst Wow and at this point in my quest I felt like I had a pretty good luck on questions 1 & 2 so I asked him about number 3 the agriculture sectors about 18% of overall emissions the livestock is about half of that 18% Wow and almost all about its beef is this like cow farts cow burps slightly more burps than parts but it's a mix of those two to put that into perspective that means that sector alone is responsible for more greenhouse gases than all the cars trucks trains ships and planes combined turns out it takes a lot of stuff to make a cow burying a fish particularly beef is eight to one use eight calories right to feed that cow for every calorie of meat you get up because you're building bone and respiration for that cow now this was a really good point I hadn't fully considered if you think about it as humans we're really solar powered we eat plants but they get their energy from the Sun then you might be like ah we also eat animals though but they get their energy from plants too which again get their energy from the Sun so when it comes to getting our energy from the Sun animals are an inefficient middleman we get on average 10% of our calories or energy in a day from meat that might sound reasonable until you look at the amount of resources it takes to make that meat compared to the other 90% if you combined all the land in the u.s. dedicated to raising animals you would get an area like this and then Plus this much more to grow the crops needed to feed those animals now remember all of that is for the middleman for 10% of our daily energy now compare that to the amount of land needed for crops we actually eat ourselves directly that relatively small chunk of land is where the overwhelming majority of our personal energy comes from and it's not just land resources but water as well to end up with 24 hamburger patties it requires the amount of water you see in this pool that same amount of water could make seventy five loaves of whole-grain bread and thirty jars of peanut butter so if I made myself a delicious peanut butter sandwich which has nearly the identical amounts of both calories and proteins compared to this patty and then I ate two a day the meat would last me a little over a week and the sandwiches would last me a little over a year so that's the same amount of resources used same amount of calories and protein to me per serving one just lasted me a year longer because it's a much more efficient energy transfer method this is why a plant-based diet is a way more efficient use of natural resources we can feed an additional 3.5 billion people worldwide if all countries just ate the stuff they fed to animals and here's why that fact matters particularly as people get richer they tend to eat more meat if we don't do anything this sector will actually grow over time so you're saying not just the fact that there's more people and a larger population but as people move up towards the middle class they want to consume more meat and you can certainly see that this is true when you look at the amount of meat consumed over the last fifty years even the resources required a trajectory for meat consumption like this is simply unsustainable a few decades ago meat was considered a luxury product but now it's a commodity for a growing number of people in fact the demand is growing so much it now makes sense for farmers in the Amazon just to burn it down and to turn that for us into grazing land for animals we've irreversibly lost twenty percent of the amazon so far and that's a double gut punch because now not only is that more cow farts adding to climate change but when you burn those trees all the carbon stored inside them goes back into the atmosphere as the greenhouse gas co2 one of the great tragedies about climate is that it's the poorest in the world the farmers who live barely near to the equator that all this heat and flooding and droughts they're going to suffer by far the most if you're just trying to get people to cut back don't eat me don't drive to work don't take trips it's such a dramatic set of sacrifices that everybody has to engage in that without innovation we're probably gonna go way past the two degrees and that last part is the silver lining plant-based meat is the exact kind of innovation Bill's referring to here and I'll optimistic because as the demand for plant-based Meuse goes up the price will come down much lower than actual meat so then not only will the experience be identical to eating meat but it's better for you better for animals and much better for the planet oh and it also costs half as much it just becomes a really easy decision for people to switch in massive numbers alright so what does this all mean now that I've completed my quest for answers where do I stand and I'll say it still makes me really uncomfortable to think about these factory farms or the Amazon being burned down to make room for more cows but at the same time I can't really blame these poor remote farmers who do nothing about what a greenhouse gases for just trying to feed their family as long as the demand for meat continues to grow there will be an incentive to be not cool to our mutual friends mother earth so the most effective thing we can do is try and reduce that demand so after all this I'm not a vegan I'm not even strictly on a plant-based diet but I have reduced the amount of meat I consume by more than half and I feel great importantly broken from that weird mindset that for it to be considered a true meal it has to have some form of meat so if any part of this video ring true to you I would say don't take my word for it try it for yourself you can find plant-based meat options in thousands of restaurants and even at Burger King and Carl's jr. most grocery stores have a whole section dedicated to them so you can substitute it into your favorite home-cooked meal and remember it doesn't have to be binary like you either eat no meat or your freaking Ron Swanson if a bunch of people did meatless Monday for example that would have a huge impact on demand some of the challenges we face globally can feel pretty daunting and so I love seeing clever people innovating on the front lines trying to make it as easy as possible for the rest of us to make the right choices it gives me hope about our future here together and inspires me to want to do my part I want to thank billable indicates for partnering with me on this video they just released a brand new gates and your letter and I will leave a link to it in the video description in it they talk about the big risks they've taken in education and global health over the last two decades of the foundation and why for the next two decades they'll continue making big bets only this time in gender equality and climate Bill's major focus on climate change involves both mitigation and adaptation to keep making progress toward making our planet a better place to live in fact I will close with a bit of a teaser from the man himself you know I actually thought of all the toughest climate problems that livestock was going to be the toughest now with these companies and other ones coming along in the space I'd say steel and cement are now the two that that I'm still scratching my head well if anyone's gonna be scratching their head to solve the problem I think Humanity is grateful Bill Gates is the one doing it so on behalf of I don't know the world we appreciate the efforts you're making in this I have some celebratory pizza rolls last year actually they're frozen you know I alright thank you [Music]

Channel: Mark Rober

Views: 37,829,358

Rating: 4.885911 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: -k-V3ESHcfA

Length: 17min 10sec (1030 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 12 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/MindTuna]

Bill didn't seem too impressed with that burger to be honest

[u/AwkwardDemon]

Lot of toxicity in this thread. Obviously, nutrition is a complicated subject, and he doesn't really dive into it very much. The point he's trying to make is plant based meat alternatives are better for the environment and can be just as good as authentic meat. I also liked how he touched on the cost aspect of it. It's expensive to the earlier adopters, but like everything, the more people who consume it, the cheaper it will get. I don't think there's any shame in choosing meat over this on a cost basis. Money's not the easiest to come by, and an extra dollar or two here and there add up. There is shame in choosing meat because you're too insecure about your masculinity or self image to consider plant based diets at all.

[u/Flemtality]

Bill Gates was an early investor in Beyond Meat, though he sold a bunch of that stock last year, so I'm not sure what this video is supposed to be saying. He is very much aware of this kind of product.

[u/SergeiPutin]

Richest man in the world.

Wasn't that Jeff Bezos?

I just googled it and it says it's Bill (110B), but Jeff apparently has 131B.

[u/iploggged]

You know you're rich when you have EXIT signs in your house.

[u/Orange_Zest]

Bought a couple of patties here in Aus and cooked them up at home, delicious. Biggest issue and why I won't buy them again for a while is the cost. If I remember right is was around $10 for 2 patties and for reference it's about $12 per kilo for beef here.

[u/tunersharkbitten]

I am glad that the worlds most influential entrepreneur is making it a more popular thing to CUT BACK on meat, even if only slightly. That is all it takes, removing 1-2 days a week where you consider getting protein via another source. there are so many options, it isnt even difficult anymore. I am a meat eater myself, but when beyond meat came out with their product and i had a blind taste test, it was astounding how i couldnt tell the difference.

I do believe that cutting out the inefficient middleman(as it was eloquently put in the video) is the right step. sure, people are always going to eat meat, and there will probably always be cattle. but the practices we have currently are such a terrible waste of resources.

I bought 20k worth of beyond meat when they went IPO. pretty damn good investment. hoping that the companies that are working on this tech not only grow exponentially, but they change the dynamic and landscape of food science altogether.

[u/befuchs]

Bill looks like he's loving that planty boi

[u/Toxicity]

I'm a big meat lover. Even though I like the new plant based advances in food tech and I like Marks videos overall this one felt like a Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods ad. Then again, maybe this is needed to switch over people to meat alternatives. Remember that there are awesome burger like alternatives that can be grown by your local farms. From one meat lover to another, try the vegie options once in a while. They aren't the spiced up pieces of cardboard they were 10 years ago.