In a conversation with Bill Gates, Questlove explains how a taste of Impossible Meat shifted his perspective from a self-proclaimed carnivore to an advocate for plant-based food. And now, he’s looking for the perfect vegan cheese.
Grammy Award-winning musical artist Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson had a change of heart about meat, all thanks to a few taste tests of the Impossible Burger a few years ago. He discussed his revelation with philanthropist and business magnate Bill Gates on a recent episode of Bill Gates’ “Unconfuse Me” podcast.
Questlove sat down with Gates to discuss the changing landscape of plant-based foods, and his own evolution from self-proclaimed carnivore to plant-based advocate.
“Somehow I just saw the future,” Questlove said about discovering Impossible Meat. “Something told me plant-based is going to be the future.”
Gates echoed these thoughts, adding: “Yes, one thing that’s cool is that it gets rid of the animal cruelty thing, but it’s also a big climate thing.”
Questlove gets behind plant-based cheesesteaks
Questlove’s journey to plant-based foods began with a chance encounter with Impossible’s founder, Patrick O. Brown. Questlove participated in three taste tests of the Impossible Burger in comparison to beef. After choosing Impossible as the taste winner every time, Questlove says he saw the future of food.
Putting his revelation into action, Questlove has since invested in innovative companies such as Impossible, The Not Company (a Chile-based company that uses AI to make plant-based alternatives to animal products); Eat Just (maker of the popular mung bean-based Just Egg); and more. In many of these, Questlove was an early investor, bolstering these companies during initial funding rounds to help them find broader success.
“There’s a lot of them,” Questlove said about his plant-based investments. “But I just feel as though that’s the future, and I want to be the person that plants the seed.”
In 2019, Questlove went beyond his role as an investor in Impossible and helped create a vegetarian cheesesteak that bears his name. Questlove’s Cheesesteak is now available through Goldbelly and has received praise from the likes of former US President Barack Obama.
Questlove also set out to address the misconceptions surrounding plant-based foods. “I kind of want to change the narrative because I think people have this [wrong] impression,” he said. “First of all, there’s just no education on how it’s made.”
“There’s a lot of misinformation, and then on top of that, the reason why I invested in the Impossible Cheesesteak was I wanted to show Philadelphians locally that just because it’s plant-based doesn’t mean that it’s boring or bland,” he said.
What’s in the future for the Questlove Cheesesteak? Questlove is on the prowl for a dairy-free cheese that can give him the same wow factor as the Impossible meat.
“Right now, I’ll say that it needs a perfect cheese to it,” he said. “So right now, it’s vegetarian based because we’re using real cheese.”
“The second that there is a plant-based cheese that tastes good, and we have high standards with how it tastes, so as soon as that happens, then we’re really going to change the game,” Questlove said.
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