When you’re a multi-billionaire like Bill Gates the world is your oyster. Want to hire a Michelin star chef to cook your meals? Go for it! Fancy ordering takeout every single day? Sure, why not? So you may be surprised to learn that when it comes to food, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is surprisingly modest.
Over the years Bill Gates has been clear about one thing: he loves burgers. Whether it’s a cheeseburger, hamburger, or even a vegan, faux meat burger, Gates will happily devour it. And to wash it down with? Diet coke. Back in 2014 Bill admitted that he drinks around 3 to 4 cans of the caffeinated beverage per day.
Is Bill Gates not worried about the long-term health and environmental implications of too much fast food? Keep reading to find out.
Breakfast
It makes sense to start at the beginning. As one of the founding members of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill undoubtedly leads a hectic lifestyle. So how does he fuel his body before a full day at work?
In a rapid-fire interview at Betsy Layne High School in 2016, Bill and Melinda were asked about their favorite breakfast cereal. Bill answers “I guess Cocoa Puffs” before quickly being interjected by Melinda, who asserts “He should say pass, he doesn’t eat breakfast”.
The answer may not be 100% clear, but it seems like Bill is not the type to wake up early to prepare a full breakfast banquet. When he does eat breakfast he prefers something quick and easy.
Diet Coke
That being the case, how does Bill Gates ensure that he has enough energy to survive a full day of back-to-back meetings? Surely he can’t get far on an empty stomach?
Like most adults, Gates relies on caffeine for a quick pick-me-up. However, rather than tea or coffee, Gates’ poison is Diet Coke. In a 2014 blog post, Gates wrote:
“Once I’m at the office, I usually open a can of Diet Coke. Over the course of the day I might drink three or four”.
And his coke-drinking habit hasn’t gone unnoticed by colleagues. In 2016, the Foundations Managing Director Joe Cerrell sat down for an interview with the Telegraph. During the interview, Joe said:
“the hallmarks of a Gates tour include hotel rooms full of Diet Coke.”
Surprisingly, the love doesn’t end there. With his immense fortune, Bill has also bought stock in Coca-Cola. According to The Investors Podcast, Gates currently owns 6,214,719 shares in the carbonated beverage company, which constitutes 1.76% of his investment portfolio.
Burgers
When it reaches dinner time there’s only one thing on Bill Gates’ mind: burgers. Speaking of Bill’s lunchtime methodology, Joe Cerrell claimed:
“Cheeseburgers for lunch, no matter who you are. If you get the lunchtime slot with Bill, you’re eating burgers. Someone will always be sent to get bags of McDonald’s. I don’t think Melinda lets him have them at home.”
This is far from the caviar or the luxury steak you might expect from a billionaire. Particularly since Bill has confirmed that his favorite burgers come from fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s, BurgerKing, and In-N-Out.
The same is true when it comes to the kind of burger, Bill isn’t fussy. In a 2017 ‘Ask Me Anything’ session Bill stated that his favorite kind of sandwich is “Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger”. But a year earlier in 2016, Bill said his favorite food of all time was “hamburgers”.
So it seems any kind of burger will suffice, even if it doesn’t contain meat! Bill has made his opinions on the meat industry pretty clear in the last few years, claiming that it is not sustainable in the long term. This led him to invest in Beyond Meat, a plant-based meat company.
“The ‘meat’ was made entirely of plants. And yet, I couldn’t tell the difference”, he wrote.