Hi, my name is Dawn and I'm new here. It looks like there are a lot of new people here - that's good, right? I've been vegan for two weeks. Go me, whoo!

Here are some things I have learned in two weeks: 

1) The pinto beans at Chipotle are not vegetarian. They have pork in them. I've been ordering for years and was only told that yesterday after asking questions, and a manager happened to overhear, because the woman serving the food apparently had no idea. She also kept trying to give me meat. I don't think she understood the term "vegetarian," even though it is a menu option.

2) A lot of food service workers have never heard of "vegetarian," let alone vegan. They fail to understand.

3) Refried beans at the Mexican restaurant have lard in them. Who knew? I just thought beans were beans. In the Midwest anyways, beans are never just beans.

4) Cheese is on EVERYTHING. Americans eat cheese on EVERYTHING. Wow, there is a lot of cheese in the world.

5) I don't cook, and so I've been eating a lot of vegan packaged snack foods, namely dried fruits and toasted coconut chips. OMG, toasted coconut chips are SO GOOD. And then when you snack on too many of them, there are bad digestive consequences. I don't recommend. I have good digestive days and bad digestive days.

6) Those Kashi granola bars that I love so much? Not vegan. They have honey in them.

7) Ethical dilemma: so if a person is a private bee-keeper and has their own hive, and they treat their bees VERY NICELY, and occasionally take some honey, I don't see how that's ethically bad. I would eat that honey. I'm just letting you know . . .

8) Is honey mustard dressing vegan? I was just wondering that. It looks sort of creamy. I guess I should look that one up. I never pondered these things before.