Chef Juliano Brotman was raised in his father's meat-heavy Italian restaurants in Denver, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and Chicago . After working in other traditional restaurants and the catering business, he felt disenchented with the entire cooked food process and discovered the health benefits of being a vegetarian.

At 19, he became vegan, giving up all animal products and four years later he became 100% raw.

Without cooking, his energy grew and his consciousness became more aware of the beautiful earth around him. In search of like-minded individuals, he moved to San Francisco to join an ayurvedic yoga center. Practitioners of ayurveda, originally a Hindu medicine system, follow dietary recommendations such as always eating hot food in cold seasons.

"They said cooked rice is, like, 5,000 years old, and I said raw was, like, before fire," Juliano says. "So I moved out of the yoga center and got into the restaurant. I just opened the restaurant to eat."

His mother financed his first venture, which opened in 1994, serving meatless meatloaf made of portobello mushrooms and nuts, burritos wrapped in cabbage leaves, and cheese-free, meat-free burgers served on breadlike sheets of sprouted buckwheat baked 10 hours in the sun. His sister helped develop the recipes.

His celebrity clientele grew -- Robin Williams, Michael Milken, Steve Jobs, Woody Harrelson and Bryan Adams along with other musicians, actors, CEO's, and professional athletes.

In 1999, he released his internationally best selling book, "RAW-UNCOOK BOOK". http://www.amazon.com/Raw-Uncook-Book-Vegetarian-Food/dp/0060392622.

In 2000 he relocated Planet Raw to Santa Monica.

Chef Juliano has appeared on dozens of television shows including CBS' 48 hours, Oprah Winfrey. He is always in demand as a private chef for large catering events and intimate gatherings including his University Of Raw Chef training certification.

In his free time, he practices astanag yoga, travels the world, and tries to find new ways of bridging the beauty of life with his Planet Raw cuisine.

He recently released a set of DVD's for Raw Food preparation and will soon be launching a series of live podcasts offering indvidual classes and chef certification programs online.