It's time we told you a little about us. We are Damon Siska and Toni Genaro, raw food enthusiasts.

We started our raw journey in late April 2009. Damon and I were already vegetarians but very bad ones (now we realize that). We had started researching the food industry and what goes into and happens to our processed food about 6 months prior to going raw. It's not pretty... we were ready for a change!

Toni's story:
     I am mostly German and have always loved bread, so being a vegetarian wasn't so bad because I could still eat bread, soy based sausages, potatoes and of course lots of organic butter (always the real thing). We included fish and dairy products on our vegetarian diet. I felt better being a vegetarian then I did as a meat eater, so I figured I was eating correct. After all I was eating better than my Mother taught me. I was raised on a 100% Standard American Diet (SAD). Lots of meat, dairy and rice-a-roni (or all packaged side dishes)!!
      I remember trying to diet in high school. I always had largethighs, my three older sisters used to call me "thunder thighs" so Iwas always trying to loose that 10 pounds to skinny up. When I was ateen my Mother and I would go to what was then a "womensonly gym" but the only machine I remember using was the one thatyou wrapped a large belt around your waist and it shook. (Anyone remember those?It would have been the late 1970's) It was supposed to burn fat, butall it did was giggle your whole body. It felt funny and I thought Iwas exercising. I was active in school, playing volleyball andbasketball, but I wasn't eating right, so I was never really fit. Mydieting failures continued into adulthood. I was continually looking for aquick way to loose weight.
     I wasn't feeling great the last couple of years, I've always had digestive issues, some of them disappeared when I became a vegetarian, but they were slowly returning even after 7 years of not eating meat.
     Most recently I was looking for "cleansing" pills or diet pills to help me, I had purchased several in the past 5 years, but nothing worked. I remember my Mom trying Weight Watchers when I was a kid. I knew that was WAY too much work for a diet. I could never remember how many "points" to count for what foods. I couldn't stand to even count calories! Not my style. I considered purchasing the diet meals and having them sent to me, but I wasn't aware of any vegetarian programs, I also figured I couldn't afford any of those programs anyway.
     So now here I am theyear I am to turn 44 remembering something a friend told me. "It'sreally hard to lose weight after 40, you get this gut that you justcan't get rid of." Of course it's been on my mind since she told me (Ithink I was about 25) but when I was 39 I just knew I would have toaccept the extra weight that I was packing around. It didn't reallymake me feel any better about it.
     When I went to my womens' annual appointment this year my doctor confirmedwhat I already knew, I had gained 13 pounds in one year!!!!! She let itslide by pretty lightly but I was mortified!!! I was already feelinghefty for my tiny 5 ft 6 1/2 inch frame. I was attempting to eatsmaller portions and exercise (with the Nintendo Wii that is now usedfor logging my weight), but nothing was working. I was telling myselfthat I was only 5 pounds overweight, but every year I seemed to pack onanother 5 and another 5, now it was 13!
     Just when I was ready to give up and accept the fact that my "fat" pants were getting tight and I may need to purchase the next size up, we found a raw recipe book by accident. Two weeks after that horrific womens' annual appointment we went on an anniversary trip to Fort Bragg, CA. There we found ourselves in a small store looking at all kinds of wonderful condiments, soup mixes, cookbooks and kitchen gadgets. Damon picked up a cookbook and said "Wow, check this out, nothings cooked. We could do this". I glanced over his shoulder and was very intrigued. I then took a look at several of the descriptive pages in the book that talked about why raw works and what it can do for you. I was sold when I found out that raw could 1) Help you loose weight, 2) Clear your eyes, 3) Clear your skin, and 4) Improve your health. All of which I knew I wanted desperately to do. The raw recipe book was by Sarma Melngails and Matthew Kenney's Raw Food Real World. It has wonderful recipes, photos and informative descriptions of what raw means and how to buy the items you need. Looking back, they are the reason... We Want Raw!
     We have now been 80 to 95% raw for 6 months and the recipes are still wonderful. In fact, I don't have enough time to make everything I want to! I want to share this food and it's benefits with everyone.
     We continue to purchase recipe books and make wonderful meals. I am almost down to my desired weight, whatever that may be. Funny thing is, I don't know what my weight SHOULD be, I always remember being slightly heavy. I can't wait to see my gynecologist in April 2010 and see her reaction to my weight loss! Is that sick? I can't wait for my womens' annual? Oh well, I know she will mention my weight, it's always the first item she compares from the year prior.
     I am excited about our raw food lifestyle. I always tell everyone that wants to know how I've lost weight or to anyone that happens to mention that I look great. Damon and I are going to teach more classes, have pot lucks, start catering and hopefully help our world get healthier by teaching everyone we love...and everyone who is willing, that it is possible to feel great, and regain your health while eating wonderful food.

Damon's story:
     I honestly do remember a time very early when we lived in the city near health food stores and I got to try natural foods and things like carob and pomegranates. I still crave carob today as childhood comfort food and never will forget the taste. Ahh the good ol' days.
     Well as usual the good ol' days came to an abrupt end and we ended up living with some hippie friends of my parents' on a chicken ranch road in Petaluma, CA. There were poultry / egg trucks zipping up and down the road at all hours of the day. One day one of those trucks impact launched a poor deer from the road into the front yard of the hungry hippies we happened to be living with...so they drug the still twitching animal right into the kitchen to be butchered on the spot. I think I was four or so. I never ate meat again until my step-dad took us to the new McDonald's that moved into town when I was about six or seven. "I could eat this" I thought, "it doesn't even taste like meat!". I was no longer a vegetarian.
    Soon I was diagnosed pre-ulcer as a child and prescribed a case of Mylanta per month so my free school lunches wouldn't irritate my stomach so bad. Let's put a Band-Aid on a bullet wound why don't we??!?! So then it's Food Stamps, Top Ramen, USDA dried milk, canned pork, maybe some honey and five pound blocks of Pasteurized Processed Cheese Food (I remember standing in line at City Hall with my mom to get our "handouts for the poor". That was pretty much my childhood diet, the best I can remember anyway through grade school. Lots of cereal. Oh, and "boil-in-a-bags" or those fifty cent plastic packages of over-salted lunch meat type substance. Does that stuff come from square animals? The first or fifteenth of the month would bring a delicacy like a meatloaf, goulash or even a cheap cut of steak (ketchup please)! The only thing spicy that I really knew of was the Tabasco sauce you got a taste of when you said things that were too "spicy" for children to be saying.
     I would get all the colds and flus everyone else did of course. You would usually find me on antibiotics shortly after for whatever reason. By the time I was in high school, I realized I was tired a lot and would do whatever it took to get more energy (coffee, energy drinks etc.). I got into some trouble we'll say. The teenage iron gut pulled through for me as I ate Hostess Apple pies and Nestle` Strawberry Milk for lunch in lieu a "reduced fee lunch" which was usually a discolored "meat" patty of questionable origin that was two inches smaller in diameter than the oversized bun it was served on.....more ketchup please!    
     So, back from the good ol' days and into the real world. I'm 21 now. Get a job, wife, kids and go shopping with that big paycheck you get every week. I found out that I loved cooking and food! Especially when I discovered ethnic foods....I had never even tried sour cream or salsa until I was 19 years old. We made Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Indian; all the basics and more. I loved it, my wife at the time loved it and so did my kids for the most part. I loved their leftovers even more! Then my health started to decline even more....fast....I was up to 191 lbs. and drinking 6-10 cups of coffee a day to "wake up" or "keep going".
     I started to rethink meat when my wife got a job cleaning a butcher shop. The smells and sights of the Meat Guzzling Machine we have become as Americans began to weigh on me again and I became an ovo-lacto vegetarian. I did this in protest to the meat producing factories we celebrate as the $.99 double-cheeseburger. I just couldn't think of a fryer chicken with broken legs in a cage for it's entire, yet short life so my kids could enjoy something called a "nugget" that was rumored to originated from a chicken.  Last I checked, chickens don't have nuggets. I still lost 30-35 lbs. Now I am "thirty-something".....whoopee.
     Well as most of us have experienced at one time or another, life pulls out a hand you didn't expect. I found myself with a loving new partner that was willing make some changes with me for her health and mine. We try vegetarianism together....failing miserably. It was all so good though! The vegan sausages, tofu, bread, french fries, cheese and frozen meatless hamburgers. Not to mention Indian food, Thai, Japanese...mmmmmmm. I wasn't losing a thing, especially around my waist! I just gave my 30" waist pants away and bought 32's. That's how it goes as you approach 40 as a man right, all my friends were doing it. It wasn't that I was eating a lot of food, just calorie dense, dead foods.
     After about 7 years I really did not feel good. I was considering seeing a doctor for the first time in 10 years or more for my digestion as I was not digesting my food very well especially leafy greens and dairy. I'm sure he would have had a pill for that. Instead on a whim, I stopped eating dairy except for Kefir and Whole Cottage Cheese as they seemed to be the only thing that helped drastically. We didn't eat a lot of leafy greens anyway for some reason. VEGETARIANS?? HELLO?? We had started educating ourselves about food, the food industry and especially processed foods when we found "The Book"...thank you Sarma and Matthew. It was simply the idea of raw living foods that would begin our journey.
     Once we began to eat raw foods I personally noticed immediate changes with my digestion. With dairy out of the picture alone I was amazed. Then eating raw greens allowed me to digest them! WOW! Then I discovered that I could enjoy all of the foods I liked before with more flavor and NOT watch calories, fat, sodium or sugars....double WOW! I was back to eating whatever I wanted but I also noticed that I also really REALLY craved greens, I now do daily.
     Then was some detox for me. Headache for a day or two....got an eyeache....fatigue for a few days....then the same in reverse. It only lasted a bit but it was worth it. Now I realize if I had consumed more calories during my "transition" I should have been fine. More on that later.......
     I am now 37 soon to be 38, 138lbs and have more energy than I know what to do with. I have been accused of being my 13 year old daughters BROTHER! (sorry, that one felt good! and can run circles around my kids, my friends and sometimes even Toni! I need only about 6 hours of sleep per night and my mind has never been so focused. I do feel better than I ever have in my life and I have raw living foods, and our diligence to stick to it, to thank for it.