Omowale Adewale (vegan): A Peaceful Fighter for a Just World, Part 1 of 2

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, USA, Omowale Adewale, affectionately called “Wale,” is a champion martial artist, author, and founder of Black Vegfest.

“My brother told me that: ‘Hey, because you have high blood pressure, …’- I was diagnosed with high blood pressure at 15 years old - he told me to stop eating meat. For 20 years, I stopped eating meat. Then eight years ago, I became vegan, in 2013. I was already an athlete and I always wish that I went vegan earlier, which everyone says. Once you realize that you can actually live and you can thrive, not eating meat, then, of course, you feel like you've been eating all these bodies for so long and it didn't make any sense.”

After Wale decided to go completely vegan, he quickly found out about the tremendous benefits to his wellbeing. Eliminating all dairy foods from his diet, he rapidly noticed changes in his performance as an athlete. One of the many positive changes he noticed most was that the chronic bronchitis, from which he had been suffering since childhood, disappeared within two weeks. “The biggest change for me was my chronic bronchitis, which I had since I was young. It went away. It took two weeks for me to be able to breathe easily.”

It’s well-known that the adage “Milk builds better bones” is merely marketing propaganda, and has no scientific basis. Other than the common allergen lactose in the milk, evidence shows that the antibiotics and hormones concentrated in finished products can cause antibiotic-resistant superbugs, and the increased risk of childhood obesity linked to early puberty, breast cancer, or ovarian cysts for women, as well as prostate cancer for men.

Our beloved Supreme Master Ching Hai has spoken about some of the unbearable cruelty occurring in the dairy industry. “In the most industrial country, they confine the cow-lady, and they force her to take a lot of chemical things to produce more milk. And then as a consequence, their bones are rotten, and they could hardly support their bodies. Sometimes she fell down and she gets sick, and her organ comes out of her body. When they want to stitch them back (together), they don't even give them aesthesia or anything. And I don't like all these inhuman and uncivilized ways of treating an animal-person – an animal-person who is beneficial to mankind, who is so kind and so gentle.”