So… basically I don’t really care whether I’m a carnivore or not. What interests me, is the effect on my health, and was wondering if anyone had tried and what happend to them.
If I could eat what I wanted without side effects, I’d NEVER be a carnivore, just a big meat eater.
I really don’t care about any “rule” or “label”, I care about someone’s experience. That’s all.
there is no zc carnivore or non zc carnivore
there is strict carnivore and a more relaxed carnivore version.
strict is meat only. there is no milk or coffee or cheese or other dairy of any kind, no condiments or spices or herbs on the meat. they are the ‘all in by the book’ zc people that ‘require this’ and ‘want this plan strict’ and follow it that way.
then relaxed is allowing some milk if you do well on it. some other dairy like cheese. will use some condiments and sauces like hot sauce or sprinkle on some garlic powder on ribs if they enjoy that taste. very personal what ‘little they will use’ in their day tho.
Milk is carnivore but many carnivore choose to drop it because it is a higher lactose dairy. Plus heavy cream beats reg. ol’ milk any day and heavy cream gives us so much more fat content than milk so heavy cream is a definite favor over milk. Quite a few carnivores will still use a little milk if they want. But overall use of it is not high. Milk is not favored on carnivore kinda.
ZC…this gets tons of confusion 
means zero carb…a ‘term’ coined by ZIOH (Zeroing in On Health…Charles Washington and Kelly Hogan keep slinging zc around alot more) as it started to catch on. It means ‘zero carbs from eating plants’. It has nothing do to with any carbs in any eggs, meats, seafoods of any kind. It is a total reference about ‘zero carbs from any plant intake’ so that is how ZC was kinda born. Many get confused here…hey meat and seafood contain carbs?? How can the plan be zero carb? Well it it isn’t if one eats some liver or eggs etc. that contain some carbs, the term is all about ‘zero carb from plants’. ZC is about zero intake of plants, but all small carb intake, wrapped around yummy meat proteins like seafood or liver or eggs is mute. These just wash away in the term meaning of it all.
If you do well on a little milk and it suits you have it on carnivore if you are doing a tad relaxed carnivore. Milk is animal. Not ‘truly eating an animal’ as food intake on a plate, but a little milk is dairy and acceptable on relaxed carnivore if you like it and want it.
hope that explains a bit on it all
Thanks @Fangs
That makes sense. There’s a lot of differing info on Google (like there is on everything!) so thanks for explaining it. 
yes, milk is carnivore LOL
it is just many carnivores drop it for heavy cream. for fat content vs. using milk that is a higher lactose intake.
alot of carnivores use a little milk in their day if they enjoy it, do well on it and like it but it is not a ‘favor’ of most carnivores at all. Most of us dump it. We kinda find no value in it
on any eating plan change, how strict and tight can one be?
does one need to be all the time?
in that if out and about and we carnivores order ribs and they ‘only come with a dry rub’ on them…do we not eat them? Ahhhh, a strict carnivore would not eat them. They want NO herbs or spices or additives on their meats ever…but then if a person ‘does well’ on a little dry rub on ribs and they enjoy the taste and do fine and it is such a small amt…they kinda fall into that ‘relaxed carnivore’. Now relaxed only means they have a tad of spice and such, they are not eating plants in their meals ever. They just allow a little bit extra to account for all the ‘darn times in life’ we are on the road, or travelling, or eating at events or how our family seasons a pot roast or cooks a stew. A stew with veg, many relaxed carnivores will pull out the meat and knock off as much of the gravy on it and eat that meat only while a strict carnivore ain’t touchin’ that stew
so it is a tad of variance on how well we do on what condiments we can use to suit us and make long term life eating plan work for us.
The same is true of many non-carnivore ketonians, as well, and for the same reason.
This used to be discussed more explicitly on the forums several years ago. I guess I’ve kind of gotten so used to thinking that “dairy” = “heavy cream” that I forget it’s not what other people think.
yea so true. milk is like the loser in the dairy dept for almost any low carb eating plan LOL I am same. Milk, what is that? now heavy cream!! we all know that one
I can’t give you any anecdotes specifically about mushrooms, as I’ve not eaten them whilst on carnivore.
But I have felt a real difference being 100% carnivore compared to how I felt at 95% carnivore. I was very strict even at 95%, so it really surprised me that there was a significant difference just committing to that last 5%.
When I was 95% carnivore, I still felt pretty good. If pretty good is enough for you and you’re keen to experiment, then have a go at adding in the mushrooms and see how you fare.
As for the rest of the discussion, people are often strict about the label ‘carnivore’ because:
HI FRIEND!!!
what a great statement and wonderful post! You so nailed such valued points! I hope you are doing very very well!!
I prefer cream myself and I had a decade with almost zero milk… But nowadays we keep some milk at home here and there and then I don’t open one of my precious heavy milk packages just use a bit milk. Its sugar/everything else (energy, protein, fat) ratio is quite high but it is somewhat convenient sometimes. I really understand why it’s not particularly liked on carnivore… It’s more safe for me to use a little milk when my SO uses up the rest instead of having creamy coffees all the time for days (too much coffee, too much unsatiating cream fat)… I had those times and still don’t feel perfectly safe… So some people may have a good reason for a little milk here and there. Not often or in big amounts.
Dairy is so much for me! We don’t even have heavy cream, only 30% whipping cream. I use it very rarely. Just like milk, the new dairy in my life, I really avoided it for such a long time (except at a relative where it was milk or condensed milk for my coffee. I can drink black but I was relaxed there) but it came back, rarely and typically in small amounts. It’s one of the best tasting drinks for me now.
But my main ones are sour cream and quark. If I had to choose one, it would be quark as it is a protein source. I should live on protein sources and not much else.
I keep forgetting butter is dairy as it’s “fat” to me. Too little extra for non-sensitive me to matter (except the sugar and protein is the tasty part).
There are other dairy items I rarely or never use. I bought kefir last time and I consider Greek yogurt a cute, low-fat and still working sour cream substitute, it’s good.
But none of them are my staples. That’s meat and eggs. Quark is an occasional helper. The others are just for joy.
You said a key thing, you don’t feel perfectly safe so you use your milk or heavy cream AS YOU need to use. Never a darn thing wrong ever with just that!!
yes people use milk or cream as they want or need. Agreed. Key being in time on carnivore plan we change as the body says it wants, and some drop milk easily and just focus on heavy cream, or they dump the coffee intake also and find less use of milk and/or cream in their day, so…but again, time on plan is required to see how we progress.
Time to change and it can be years on zc to make those changes but key being, use that bit of milk or cream as you love and desire on plan, never ever wrong!!
This is the best way of expressing this that I’ve seen.
I eat mushrooms now and then, i like the taste.
Its limited by my own ruleset I live by, max 20gr of non carnivore carbs a week.
Mostly spend on Beer saturday evening,
It will be one or the other, mushroom or beer.
Another rule I live by, “if it didn’t have a mother wit 2 eyes, its not food”. Milk is food an it is in my woe, beespit is not.
I’m not a Carnivore, but there are not many on the forum that live as carnivorous as I do, thats for shure.
Cheers
I don’t know how much it would affect an otherwise carnivore diet, as I believe one can do say, 90% or 80% carnivore if one wanted too. I think I am at the moment 80%. I am becoming less and less interested in adding vegetables to my meat dishes, but mushrooms, well I believe just a bit of mushroom with your daily meat is as close to a perfect dish as possible. It’s just so interesting tasting and makes of the meal something earthy and wild … Just to add, I am talking normal mushrooms, not psychedelic ones. I would happily use up my entire carb allowance on mushrooms. Best accompaniment to meat in the world.
But what is 90%? If it would be just the calories, it would be low-carb, definitely not keto for most of us… Volume wise? Even carbier if the items are “right”.
My SO ate eggy mushroom yesterday and I tasted it. It was one of my fav species, herald of the winter, I gathered a ton of it 2 years ago, really, I canned many many jars, we still have some. i really liked its taste. And now it tastes like parsley root… What.
I always disliked that taste. So that mushroom is out for me now I still find wild edible champignons (as there are various toxic, smelly ones, the bigger half of our finding is bad) and the tastiest umbrella mushroom species quite delicious. Unneeded, I definitely never desire them but they are still okay.
Store-bought white champignon are too tasteless, I almost never ate them in my life. The brown is a tad better but I prefer my wild ones. They are way more interesting anyway, I collected and tastes very many species this far. (It’s always fun to eat an Amanita 
of course I only do it with the very obviously edible ones. I just enjoy the beauty of the more or less toxic ones. One of my favorite groups.)
I hope I didn’t repeat myself, I don’t remember what I wrote here before.
It depends on one’s reasons for adopting this way of eating. You are fortunate that your 80% carnivore way of eating works well for you.
Some well-known carnivores have to eat a 100% meat-only diet because of health conditions that are treatable no other way.
The other extreme, of course, is a doctor Gary Taubes interviewed for his most-recent book, who eats a vegan keto diet, because her body reacts badly if she eats any meat.
None of these people believes that everyone should eat the way they do, only that they have to eat that way.
Lots of Mycophobia here. The OP is on to something. Mushrooms are one of the few vegan options with B12. They can contain vitamin D when grown properly. Best prebiotic possible. We can start a conversation about the amino acids vs meat. Oldest fossil on earth is a giant mushroom. We could owe our existence to mushrooms as the spores can survive deep space, cold and radiation.
10% of mushrooms are inedible. 90% edible.
90% of plants are inedible. 10% edible.
I see Prop 122, in Colorado, as a possible end to the opioid epidemic. I highly recommend we don’t put on our blinders!!
Yes I understand most vegan food can be terrible. But plants dominate that menu.
A tiny handful of nuts in the morning, say ten almonds, and just three broccoli florets or three or four medium sized mushrooms to accompany my meat at dinner. I didn’t start off that way but am finding myself less and less interested in fruits and vegetables.