Vegan 60th? Obama’s Birthday Menu Features Impossible Beef, Just Egg and Perfect Day Cheese

For his 60th birthday celebrations, former U.S. President Barack Obama is going to be devouring a delicious animal-free meal. Featured on the plant-based menu are a number of alt-proteins made by leading food tech brands, including Eat Just’s mung bean-based egg, Impossible Foods’ plant-based meats and lactose-free, animal-free real dairy developed by Perfect Day. 

Obama is going all-in on alt-proteins for his birthday celebrations this weekend at Martha’s Vineyard. The former U.S. president, who just turned 60 on August 4, is inviting guests to feast on a delicious plant-based meal. Sources close to the festivities have leaked the menu to Bloomberg, which will showcase alt-proteins created by the country’s leading food tech brands. 

Plant-based birthday menu

While it isn’t clear whether a separate animal-meat menu will also be served at the party, the report says that there will at least be one plant-based menu, put together by Grammy award-winning artist Questlove, the drummer behind The Roots and avid alt-protein investor. 

One dish, a Spam Musubi, will be made from plant-based heme-filled beef and pork created by Impossible Foods and Eat Just’s mung bean-based vegan JUST Egg. Another dish, Cheesesteak Eggrolls, will contain Impossible Beef and a real dairy, cow-free cheese sauce developed by Perfect Day. Perfect Day uses precision fermentation to create animal-free, bioidentical whey proteins without any cows—and this cheese sauce isn’t even currently on the market.  

This dish, the Questlove Impossible Cheesesteak, was first trialed at the Roots Picnic and later became a menu staple at a number of events across the U.S. hosted by Live Nation. It features peppers, onions and originally contained dairy-based cheese, which will be swapped out at Obama’s party for Perfect Day’s animal-free version. 

Obama: we need to eat less meat

The former POTUS has previously made his opinions clear about plant-based food. While not a vegetarian or vegan himself, Obama is an advocate for cutting down our meat consumption for the planet. 

During his first international appearance after leaving office, he addressed the crowd at the Global Food Innovation Summit in Milan about the growing awareness of the link between animal agriculture and climate change. The livestock industry is responsible for producing 18% of the world’s GHG emissions, and is a major driver of deforestation, water pollution and soil erosion. 

“People aren’t as familiar with the impact of cows and methane, unless you’re a farmer. That doesn’t mean that we can’t teach you and me to have a smaller steak, for our own health. It doesn’t mean we can’t make progress in educating the advanced world about the need to reduce, just for dietary reasons, the amount of meat that we consume at any given meal,” he said. 

Michelle Obama has also worked to promote plant-based diets through her charity Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA). Last year, the organisation partnered with food tech Beyond Meat for its 10th-anniversary summit, where the brand’s founder and CEO Ethan Brown was invited as a keynote speaker to share the importance of plant-based foods for a healthy lifestyle. 

Lead image courtesy of Barack Obama via Flickr.