American podcaster Joe Rogan went full blast at Bill Gates on his podcast show on 25 February, slamming the billionaire for giving out public health advice while he himself appeared to “look like sh*t”.
As he interviewed guest speakers, registered dietician, nutritionist Diana Rodgers and author, paleo diet advocate Robb Wolf on The Joe Rogan Experience, the former comedian questioned the motives of Microsoft founder and philanthropist Gates when he urged people to eat less meat and get used to meat alternatives.
“Are you making money because of this?" queried Rogan, who underscored that Bill Gates was reportedly the largest owner of farmland in the Unites States.
The host went on to wonder why, if Gates himself was eating those “plant-based burgers”, he looked so obese.
“He’s got these man boobs... this gut… toothpick arms” said Joe Rogan, wondering how one of the “richest men on earth”, with access to anything from great nutrients to the best trainers, looked so “sick” when he could be in phenomenal shape.
Many on social media agreed with Rogan.
As of late January 2022, with almost 269,000 acres, Bill Gates ranked as America's largest private farmland owner.
Last year the billionaire, who is also co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in his new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, laid out his vision of what was needed to eliminate the greenhouse-gas emissions driving climate change. In an interview with MIT Technology Review, Gates said, “all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef” in an effort to cut down pollution.
Reference here is made to the fact that cows release methane, which is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.
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“You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time,” Gates had added.
One such industry pioneer is the company Beyond Meat (BYND) which went public in 2019.
Beyond Meat was ostensibly a trailblazer in using a DNA coding sequence from soybeans to create meat that looks and tastes like beef, but is actually made from vegetables.
Bill Gates was one of the first to invest in Beyond Meat, as well as in Ginkgo Bioworks – a company developing custom-built microbes, as well as Pivot Bio, a sustainable agriculture company.