'The quality will keep getting better. The plant-based guys aren't done innovating. Eventually they claim you won't be able to tell the difference'

Gates has invested in several plant-based meat companies (Photo: YouTube)

Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates has praised plant-based meat in a video with top YouTuber Mark Rober, which has attracted more than 7.5 million views in just three days.

The pair test plant-based burgers from start-ups including Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, both of which Gates has invested in, compared to a beef burger from Dick's Drive- In.

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'Light-years away'

“It's quite good. I mean that's light-years away from what they used to make," Gates said. To which Rober asked: "Like the traditional veggie burger?"

"Right," Gates agreed,"The quality is going to keep getting better. The plant-based guys are not done innovating. Eventually they claim you won't be able to tell the difference."

'Don't eat meat'

The pair also discuss the environmental impact on meat, particularly how much land, water, and energy is needed to produce beef.

“The agriculture sector is about 18 percent of overall emissions, but livestock is about half of that 18 percent. Almost all of that is beef," Gates said.

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"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 meat, 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 going to go way past the two degrees."