Comments on: Food For Thought

Andy Ponders Eating Spinach, Horsemeat And Vegetarianism

[nwjoy]

Nuts?? Nuts?! Yes, please, soynuts, peanuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts....all a much healthier choice than dead animals. I am vegetarian and much prefer elk in the forest than on my plate. I am sincerely hoping its less than 50 years before more people thoughtfully consider their food choices. Thanks for the insightful commentary, Mr. Rooney.

[rdown1]

I love what Andy had to say about eating animals and I couldn't agree more. Factory Farming is inhumane and cruel not to mention extremely inefficient. Cattle grazing is very hard on the environment and chickens endure extreme stress living in deplorable conditions. Fruits and Veggies are so much healthier and there are plenty of ways to get enough protien. Most Americans eat far too much meat. I'm with you Andy! Thanks for your refreshing common sense!

[rotrgirl]

Hey Andy:
You don,t have to wait 50 years to go Veg. I appreciate your sensitivity to animals & am glad you included it in your segment. I did an equestrian holiday in England & came across a field of young cows frolicking about. When they saw us ride by, they cme up to the fence to say hello,by mooing & kicking up their heels. It was so charming, that I decided then & there to never eat animals again. Check out www.GoVeg.com for more info.
Sincerely,
Michele Garland

[jhi2006]

Thank you, Mr. Rooney, for giving public thought to the idea that the time is coming for civilized people to move towards not eating animals.

It IS cruel to raise animals for food, and today's methods of intensive farming subject nearly 10 billion animals every year to lives of isolation, suffering and pain that are unspeakable in the public dialogue. As a piece in the New York Times reported, the recent E. Coli outbreak in spinach is the direct result of bacteria from intensive factory farm waste contaminating our environment.

The consumption of animal products is bad for animals, our planet and our health.

I encourage you to follow your heart and become a vegetarian. Live a life of peace and compassion with all animals. I think the many rewards of such a choice would surprise you.

[npvp2001]

Dear Andy,

I want to thank you for mentioning the hopeful goal that nearly 100% of "civilized" society may refuse to eat animals in another 50 to 100 years. I have been vegetarian, and now trying to be vegan, for about a year. The more I learn about the horrors of the meat and poultry industry, the more I wonder how some people continue to eat meat, chicken, pigs and other animals. Here's hoping that your comments will at least get people to start investigating the realities of mass produced meat, poultry and other animal products. Thanks again!

[southerner8]

Well, as a small farm meat producer, raising rabbits, cattle and other meat animals, I can assure CBS that 60 minutes is off my menu of things to watch. In fact, we meat producers will now boycott the show's sponsers. Looks like it's time to give Mr. Rooney the boot.

[libover30-2009]

It seems there is nothing that humans won't eat. We have been told what we can eat, yet if it moves we eat it. Doesn't matter if it once was alive and had a family, like ourselves, if it doesn't look like us, we humans will hunt it down, torture it, and then eat it. So the next time when you find yourself driving past a farm with cows, chickens, or any living, breathing creatures living there, remember, they were born free when they were first created, the same as we humans. If left to be free they would form families the same as we do. Please keep in mind, these creatures were born just like us, they are not grown, which suggests that they were grown from the ground, like veggies, and fruits. Please DO THE RIGHT THING.

[hshirley-2009]

Relative to eating, I am a flexitarian with a strong vegan bias. Soy sausage sauteed with onions and garlic is my favorite breakfast 'fake meat.' Soy beer brats and veggie burgers are my favorite fake meat lunch and dinner, respectively.

Rooney questions something that millions, including great political leaders have been questioning for thousands of years....eating other animals. With the advent of fake meat, I don't understand why society continues to eat animals.

As long as society continues this barbaric outdated practice of eating animals, then we will likely continue to see the epedemics of obesity, vascular disease, and extreme closet animal torture.

[Sweta25]

Rooney really makes a really great observation %u201CI often pass a farm with cows grazing in the field and I think to myself how terrible it is that human beings grow other animals just to kill them and eat them.%u201D It is terrible, but it can be stopped so easily by individual efforts.

[penzelda]

Hey Andy, no apologies needed for that feeling of revulsion that so many of us experience when we think of eating other living, breathing, beings. So glad that you "get it" when it comes to horses and rabbits...hopefully you will also "get it" when it comes to veal calves, piglets and lambs, who also suffer and feel pain, as we do. As you say, maybe we'll soon see the day when everyone realizes that it's time to come out of the caves and evolve, although it may take the Neanderthals among us a while longer!

[lenfrenkel]

I have watched Andy Rooney from time to time and always found him perceptive of the moods around him. His sense of present conditions for factory-farmed animals and the inconsistency of our meat-eating habits is quite correct. But of course as more and more people become aware of the horrible conditions under which animals are raised, as well as the negative health consequences of eating animal flesh,there will be more and more demand for vegetarianism. Those of us already there know the realities involved and also are beginning to know the environmental impact of raising animals for food. Andy Rooney has taken a small step toward raising the public's consciousness.

[vze23mrx]

I'm a grandmother of three, have been vegan for decades, and no, I'm not nuts - I'm healthy! When most everyone my age has arthritis, or cardiavascular disease, or hypertension, or diabetes, I have none of those and take no medication for anything.

Thank you,CBS,for bringing animal issues to the public.

I would like to suggest to Mr. Tooney, since he is a civilized person, why not commit to a plant-based diet today? Why wait hundreds of years? It's good for the planet, for humans, and for animals. There are no negatives, only positives to such a decision.

[kleighe]

Andy, I appreciated your piece on vegetarianism. It was humorous, as always, as well as thoughtful and realistic.

I'm a vegetarian and I'm not nuts... (well...)

Thanks again.

Katherine Everett

[tanyapetrovn]

I was raised by European gourmand parents who worked in fine dining food service I can tell you I know food. From foie gras to filet of sole I've had and seen it all.

When I learned what went on in the slaughterhouse I realized that wasn't for me, yet I was still eating animals. I would eat them, but I couldn't kill them. I would then find myself holding the question in my mind,"Well isn't that like hiring a hit man?"

Through the years I realized many felt the same way and that I wasn't "nuts." I then made it my business to start a chain of vegan restaurants that even the card-carrying carnivore can enjoy. To date they are as successful as the leading publicly traded companies in their field.

With the statistics enlisting 25% of university students requesting vegan meals, it may be no surprise that it will be much sooner than 50 years that the majority of the population think it odd to eat animals.

All I know is that serving faux gras is filling my soul.

Tanya Petrovna
CEO
Native Foods Restaurant Group

[mila120]

Thanks Andy for your lucid comments on eating animals. I just came from a weekend event called World Vegetarian Day in San Francisco. WOW. I had no idea that vegetarian food could be so delicious and nutritious! Why kill animals when there is such bounty in the plant world? The people at this event all looked so much healthier than the people you typically see at, say, a ball game: energetic, youthful and not a pot belly in sight. We could all stand to change our diets, not only for the poor animals, but for our own health and well being.

[jdk671]

Thank you Andy for your insightful commentary on our food choices. I'd like to encourage you to visit a farm animal sanctuary sometime so you can get to know a few cows, pigs and chickens. I think you'll find these animals to be every bit as friendly and intelligent as horses, dogs and cats. (check out www.farmsanctuary.org)

It is amazing that it is so difficult for people to make that connection between our food choices and the suffering of these animals. But you did something wonderful for the animals by encouraging people to be more thoughtful about who it is they're eating.

Please consider doing more commentaries on "food" animals and be an important voice for the 10 billion animals in the US who suffer and die each year for the habits and traditions most humans find too difficult to change.

[bscheldt]

I wanted to thank Andy for commenting on being unable to eat horsemeat. Horses are typically a friendly, loyal animal. Many Americans are lobbying U.S. Congress to ban horse slaughter in the United States. It has passed the House.

I too have the bad habit on eating meat, but would NEVER eat a horse. If my husband didn't require meat with his potatoes, I too could probably easily become a vegetarian. I, like you, have a problem choking meat down if I stop to think about the animal it came from.

God bless you Andy! I have always liked your commentaries, but I now have a new respect for you!



I like steak, lamb and pork chops but you couldn't make me eat rabbit or horse. When I was in France during World War II, horses would often be killed in the fields by artillery fire and the French farmers would wait until the shooting stopped and then rush out to carve up the dead horses for dinner.

I don't know why anyone who eats beef finds the idea of eating a horse so repulsive but I'm one of them. Horses seem so friendly and I don't like to be reminded of the animal I'm eating. I often pass a farm with cows grazing in the field and I think to myself how terrible it is that human beings grow other animals just to kill them and eat them.

Most of us think of vegetarians as nuts and I'm not a vegetarian but I wouldn't be surprised if we came to a time in 50 or 100 years when civilized people everywhere refused to eat animals. I could be one of them.

[anand1900]

Wow...didn't expect Andy Rooney of all people to suggest the possibility that in 50 yrs we might all be vegetarian! I don't know you, but the media sure makes you sound like an old meat and potatos kinda sexist guy.

Anyway, its pretty funny to me when people have dead animals in their fridge (sometimes blood too), and yet are fanatical when it comes to everyday cleanliness.

I need to watch more Andy Rooney from now on!

[superk061]

Thank you Andy for your thought provoking story. Most of us don't give much thought to the way animals are raised for food in this country. With over 9 Billion animals being slaughtered for food in this country every year, perhaps its time to consider the teatment of the animals, the lives of the workers who slaughter them, the impact on our health and the impact on our environment.

[wmustudent]

Thank you for your kind vegetarian comment. Animals are tortured on the modern factory farm. Cows are still alive as they are dismembered body part by body part.

http://vegan.walklightly.org has more information.