Bill Gates Donating $13M To Push The Narrative Surrounding Plant-Based Meat Shows How Easily Mainstream Media Can Be Bought

Back in August, Twitter user @CarniClemenza made an interesting observation. He tweeted, “Bill Gates donated $13m to The Atlantic & The Guardian. What do they have to say about meat?”

He went on to cite articles by The Guardian and The Atlantic that promote veganism and synthetic meat. Some of the titles include "Climate-friendly diets can make a huge difference - even if you don't go all-out vegan,""Plant-based meat by far the best climate investment, report finds,""Will We Ever Stop Eating Animal Meat?""What's Different About the Impossible Burger?" and "The most damaging farm products? Organic, pasture-fed beef and lamb." He points out the implication of these articles: Vegans are more ethical people who care more about the planet than meat eaters. He also states, “Controlling the narrative and the capital flowing into industrialized food start-ups puts the power in people like Bill's hands.”

Bill Gates’ Weird Obsession with Plant-Based Meat 

How do we know that Gates is invested in promoting plant-based meat? He’s spoken about it extensively. Gates told the MIT Technology Review, “I don’t think the poorest 80 countries will be eating synthetic meat. I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. 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.”

"I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef." - Bill Gates

Gates continued, “So for meat in the middle-income-and-above countries, I do think it’s possible. But it’s one of those ones where, wow, you have to track it every year and see, and 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.”

There’s nothing inherently wrong with someone wanting to start a plant-based meat business (we do live in a free-market economy, after all) or voluntarily deciding to eat plant-based meat or a vegan diet. The problem lies in Gates’ desire to mandate this type of diet (authoritarian, much?) and the elitist mentality that goes along with Gates’ obsession with plant-based meat.

What’s Wrong with Gates’ Proposal 

Colin Woodall, CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, took to Drovers to respond to Gates’ comments, and he summed up the problems with Gates’ argument perfectly. He wrote, “What Gates fails to disclose is that the reality of fake meat is far different from the utopian fantasy he is selling. Even in ‘rich countries’ like the United States, there is a vast disparity between people like Gates, and everyone else. In every community across the nation, there are people facing economic hardship, many of whom don’t get enough to eat and often lack access to affordable sources of protein. Limiting their options or mandating expensive fake meat, as Gates suggests, is typical of his elitist thinking.”

Woodall continued, “In contrast to the fake meat factories that Gates and other tech moguls are funding, real beef is produced on more than 800,000 farms and ranches in communities across the United States. More than 90% of those farms and ranches are family-owned and operated. These family farms and ranches offer real benefits that are helping to mitigate climate change. Farms and ranches provide wildlife habitat on grasslands that remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil. Those same grasslands also help lower global temperatures because they act as a heat sink, absorbing heat, in contrast to cities that reflect heat back into the atmosphere from glass, steel and asphalt surfaces. Concrete jungles will ultimately replace open space if Gates successfully replaces beef with fake meat, either through marketing or by mandate.”

Family farms and ranches offer real benefits that are helping to mitigate climate change.

Mandating fake meat will not only cut millions of agricultural and manufacturing jobs, but veganism as a whole isn’t the environmentally friendly practice that Gates thinks (or claims to think) that it is. A lot of it has to do with the cost and energy expenditures of shipping products across the world, as many climates can’t produce certain fruits and vegetables, as Jen Panaro of Honestly Modern explains, “Food production in some parts of the world is not suitable for growing vegetables and supporting vegan diets. Very cold climates, for example, where produce cannot be grown year-round, rely on local meat production as a staple in their diets. Shipping avocados from Mexico and bananas from Ecuador, both of which are often grown in monoculture conditions, probably isn’t an environmentally-superior alternative to local fish and meat-based diets.”

If veganism isn’t as environmentally friendly as we think it is, then it’s easy for one to assume that Gates isn’t promoting vegan meat to save the planet, but to promote his own agenda. His hefty donations to publications seemingly only confirm this theory, but what does this say about our current media landscape?

What Does This Mean for Our Current Media Landscape?

Gates’ large donations to publications that promote his agenda are no accident, and seemingly reveal how easily mainstream media can be bought, as well as serve as a reminder that most (if not all) mainstream media have political, social, and economic biases. It’s essential to know where you’re getting your news from and from what angle it's being dished out to you. It’s best to get your news from several different publications and sources, keeping their biases in mind (this includes reading sources outside of your comfort zone to avoid the trap of living in an echo chamber). Looking at stories from several different angles and viewpoints not only gives you the bigger picture of a news story but makes it easier to figure out what the truth is.

Closing Thoughts

In an ideal world, all media outlets would provide the news with little to no political bias. Though this would be nice (and make reading the news a lot quicker and simpler), we all know that it’s unrealistic. The best we can do is diversify our sources and learn about which biases each outlet holds to help us get a better angle on the truth and why certain outlets want to promote certain agendas – and who’s paying them to publish those headlines.

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