Good day, kind viewers of Supreme Master Television, and welcome to Vegetarian Elite!

When I look around and talk about the love for me and love for humankind, wouldn’t it be nice if we all came together and waved a magic wand and made this planet a humane society?

Can you guess what famous American personality we would like to honor on today’s show? Well, he has a remarkably diversified resume! He is professional comedian with a career spanning five decades, a long-standing human rights advocate, bestselling author, anti-drug crusader, and expert nutritionist. He has been honored at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and is also the loving father of 10 beautiful children and a devoted husband of more than 50 years. If your guess was Mr. Dick Gregory, then you were absolutely correct!

Supreme Master Television had the privilege of speaking with Mr. Gregory after the live videoconference “World Vegan World Peace: A Conscious Choice” held in Chicago, Illinois, USA, in August 2011, with Supreme Master Ching Hai as the Guest of Honor. On today’s program, we will also bring you some highlights of Mr. Gregory’s stand-up comedy performance at the event.

I remember someone asked me, they said, “You’ve been fasting for 40 years. What does your doctor think?” I said, “My doctor’s been dead 30 years.” My next birthday, I’ll be 80 years old. Next birthday, my wife will be 75. We don’t have a prescription between the two of us.

So not only when you change into the vegan, not only do you help free up food for other people, My God, think what you do for yourself. Somebody asked me, “You’ll be 80 your next birthday? You look so well. How do you know when you getting old?” You know, you’re getting old when somebody compliments them beautiful shoes you’re wearing, and you’re barefooted.

Richard Claxton “Dick” Gregory has lived a life far from ordinary. He is listed on Comedy Central’s Top 100 Stand-Up Comedians of All-Time, and in the 1960s helped bridge African-American comedy to Caucasian audiences with much success. After the 1998 birthday commemoration for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., then US President Bill Clinton said, “I love Dick Gregory, he is one of the funniest people on the planet.”

Besides bringing us much laughter, he has also been at the forefront of advancing peace and social justice in our world as one of the world’s most influential civil rights activists. He has used his public image and passionate stance on non-violence to speak out numerous times against war and for equal rights. In fact, in 1968, he ran for President of the United States for the Freedom and Peace Party.

And in 1992, he began a program called “Campaign for Human Dignity” to reduce crime in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, where he has also earned a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Perhaps what has made Mr. Gregory so successful is his ability to connect with audiences on such difficult to discuss topics like violence.

You know, we look at TV now, and so many people look at TV, and identify with crises, they identify with violence, and identify with… I got a cousin in Kansas City; he even watched so many TV movies about violence, he got 27 locks on the door, and ain’t got nothing in the house. I said, “Boy, if somebody broke in here, they’d leave something.”

On the health front, Mr. Dick Gregory has discovered many incredible secrets to long-lasting health with his research into raw foods, fruitarianism, and plant-based diets. But in 2001, he received some startling news: doctors diagnosed him with cancer. Nevertheless, with his strong faith in the power of self-healing through vegan foods and exercise, his resilient spirit pushed forward to survival and he remains cancer-free to this day! We asked Mr. Gregory how he got interested on this path of true health when he began his transformational vegetarian diet in the early 1970s.

And so about 18 months after not eating no animal products, my sinus trouble left. My sinus was so bad that that when you pick me up at the airport, have we gone on a 50 mile radius I would have had a sinus attack, that’s how bad it was. About six months after that my ulcers are gone. I used to wake up in the morning and my ulcers would be so bad I’d have to take my rings, my watches off, could nothing touch my body. Six months after that, that was gone. Then I said, “Wait a minute, there must be something to eating they haven’t told us about,” (Yes.) and that’s how it started.

I started doing research, started questioning things, (Yes.) and then I realized that I’ve been in an awful ignorant trick. You know, “How can I feel this good by eliminating something?” And then after that I started looking deep, then I started.

Mr. Gregory started to explore further into the fields of nutrition and over the years has uncovered many unsettling truths, including the dangers of milk and its strange and shocking connection with glue.

And then in going deep into the research I found out that every culture on the planet that gives their child cow’s milk, they have crib death in that culture. Cultures that would never put cow’s milk into a baby, there is no such thing as crib death. Now, then, when you do the research you find out that mother’s milk has all the nutrition, all the things you need to destroy bacteria.

One day, I decided to do some research on breast milk, and called a friend of mine. I said “I want you to find the number one and number two authorities on breast milk on the planet,” and they found them. They were at Oxford University. They said, “Well the mother has a baby so she nurses a baby.” So they said, “Well, here is what we’ll do. Let’s catch the [milk] leakage and put it in a cooler and then say, well let’s check it for nutrition value.”

They had no idea. (Yes.) where they were going. When they checked it, they found out that what is leaking is all the impurity that’s in the mother’s body. (Oh wow.) So if you’re eating foods with pesticides, that’s what leaks. If you smoke cigarettes, the nicotine leaks to protect that baby. Cow’s milk, the most important ingredient to milk is not calcium, it’s called casein. Casein builds the bone structure to carry the bodyweight. So cow’s milk has 300 times more casein in it than mother’s milk because cow’s milk has got to build a bone structure to carry a ton plus.

Mother’s milk has to build the bone structure that carries a maximum of 175 pounds. Now, what do they make commercially out of cows, out of the casein? They make kerosene and they make glue. Now what happens with crib death? Any time you put cow’s milk into a human being, there is a reaction. So what happened is the baby drank the cow’s milk and the gluey substances, some of them can’t throw up. It affects you, everyone. (Yes) And those who can’t throw up, died. It’s why they call it crib death. They died in the crib.

After Mr. Gregory’s personal research, he met another high-minded individual who helped bring his health knowledge to even greater heights.

Now this African American woman, Dr. Alvenia Fulton moved me to another level: fasting. No one could live as a human on this planet if you didn’t fast. Now let me tell. When you go to sleep at night your body does a fast. When you wake up and eat your first meal that’s when the fast, we call it “breakfast,” we don’t even know we’re saying “breaking-fast.” (Right.) The fast is not supposed to be broken until 12 noon. Now 12 noon is not determined by your watch, 12 noon is determined when the sun hits your head at the right angle. That’s 12 noon.

And so I decided I was going to fast for 40 days. Didn’t know anything about it except what she told me, and against the war in Vietnam, and so I fasted 40 days on nothing but water. I went to 57 cities and did 63 speeches. Now what happened is after the fifteenth day, my sense of smell; I could smell stuff three blocks away. (Yes.)

I could hear stuff. I asked my wife, “Why are you all talking so loud?” “You all? Nobody else but you and me.” So I start walking toward the sound. And I walked to the window, I am on the ninth floor, and I am picking up a conversation of two women standing in the bus zone waiting on the bus. All your sensitivity wakes up on the fast.

Fortified with so much powerful information and experience, Mr. Gregory decided to use his celebrity status to its fullest and inform the public about the benefits of a plant-based lifestyle. He would sometimes speak up to 250 days a year at college campuses nationwide about vegetarianism. Tracye McQuirter, founder of BlackVegetarians.org and author of “By Any Greens Necessary” is glowing, vivacious vegan of over 20 years. She credits Mr. Dick Gregory with her transition.

I honestly never thought that I would be a vegetarian, a vegan, a healthy eater, none of that. I never thought that I would be a public health nutritionist. Our black student union at Amherst College brought Dick Gregory to campus to talk about the state of black America. And instead, he flipped the script on us and he decided to talk about the plate of black America. So he talked about how unhealthfully most black folks eat.

He spent the next two and a half hours graphically tracing the path of a hamburger from a cow on a factory farm, to a slaughterhouse, to a fast food place, to a clogged artery, to a heart attack. And that was the first time I had ever heard anything like that in my life, linking diet to disease. That was the catalyst that started me researching to become a vegetarian.

Mr. Gregory has been credited for introducing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s son to vegetarianism who then went on to influence his mother, Coretta Scott King, to become a vegan. And these days, with the uncertainties surrounding the safety of genetically modified foods, Mr. Gregory shares his concerns:

Have you seen the folks that can hardly walk? Can’t think? That comes from the dye. (Yes.) That comes from the animal products. (Yes.) You know it’s kind of interesting, you go to the grocery store and you go to the egg section, they have large eggs, small eggs, medium eggs. How do you get a chicken to lay a large egg? How do you get a chicken to lay a medium egg? It’s something you’re injected into them. I had to have somebody to tell me that organic ain’t just enough. Organic is not enough.

To give you an example, they’re making organic tomatoes, growing organic tomatoes. (Yes.) They’re cross-breeding them genetically with the fish cell. So what does it mean? That means the tomatoes hold water. (Yes.) So I can put a tomato on this table here, come back six weeks later, it’s just as pretty irradiant. What they don’t tell me when I eat that tomato, my body holds water. Then when I start swelling, I’ll go see my doctor. You’re not aware that the organic tomatoes have been genetically engineered. So when I come to see you, you put me on the water pills.

Anytime you put me on something to kill something that I don’t need, that will kill me. (Yes.) And so what I am saying now, there has to be a mechanism out here that has nothing but a research team and start putting that information out.

Mr. Dick Gregory, thank you for your very beneficial reminders about our food choices in this day and age. Your passion and exhaustive research are definitely much appreciated. May you continue to inspire the world with your lively energy and humor!

To learn more about comedian and activist Mr. Dick Gregory please visit: www.DickGregory.com

Amiable viewers, thank you for being with us today on Vegetarian Elite featuring the truthful messages shared by Mr. Dick Gregory. We look forward to seeing you again for part 2 next Sunday, November 5. Coming up next is Between Master and Disciples. See you next time!