If you are a vegan, think back to when you weren’t. I know—it’s tough to recall memories of eating burgers and turkey sandwiches. But try. You probably took a lot of convincing to change your diet. In fact, the first few people who tried to get you into veganism probably drove you nuts. You may have thought they seemed entitled, pushy and even like they were in some cult. Now that you’ve recalled that, maybe you can be a little easier on your meat-eating friends who are resistant to your lectures on an animal-product-free lifestyle. We get it: you feel very passionate about your lifestyle, and you want to pass its benefits onto your friends. But sometimes what you intend to come off as loving comes off as judgmental, and even insensitive. Here are things meat eaters wish vegans would stop saying.

You own a dog; how can you eat meat?

Really? You have to bring the dog into this? For thousands of years, dogs and humans have evolved to be friends. Wild dogs learned that, if they were nice to cavemen, they’d give them their scraps. The human-dog relationship is a sacred one that’s almost as old as humankind. Bringing our relationship with our dog into this is messed up and makes no sense. Humans don’t grow up with pigs sleeping in their beds. Humans don’t grow up with chickens greeting them at the door. We naturally evolved to have a different connection to dogs than we do to the animals we eat. Don’t try to compare that.