Hi happy to be here.
Welcome (back, apparently)!
Well, this is all individual. Keto isnât even about being quite health conscious for everyone⌠Keto is basically just a limit on your carb intake (and whatever else may hinder you from going to and staying in ketosis), at least itâs my definition, keto is the diet for ketosis, what else? 
There are more specifics keto diets, for therapeutic keto or for people who need more rules right away (I need other rules too but I brought some with me and figured out what my individual body needs. keto doesnât ban any food or drink, actually. but we should be choosy to some extent).
You could pry cheese from the cold, dead hands of many people here 
I personally eat it in moderation (almost nothing now but it progressed naturally and if I fancy some, I eat it), others in bigger amounts and some skips dairy because they arenât good with it, not even lactose-free cheeses.
Lunchmeat is probably similar but that may contain less ideal things easier I imagine. Ours (I live in Hungary) has little meat and isnât considered a proper food. But some countries has a better kind.
I met people who donât eat processed meat. I do but I look at the sugar content and prefers sausage that used 120-150g meat for 100g sausage (itâs a dry sausage, of course, I use 10g at a time. I canât imagine it could be worse than me living without it, that would be boring). So⌠Do whatever seems good for you and maybe it will change eventually.
This site is all about <20g and with a reason. As itâs a pretty safe number. Almost everyone goes into ketosis by eating <20g carbs. But still not everyone. I started with a way higher number as I couldnât go lower, I was super lucky as 40g was keto for me (I risked it wonât work but as I said, I couldnât go lower back then. now itâs easy and way better) - but 50g was too much as far as I could tell. 50g seems way too high to me in general too, many people just donât get keto benefits that way as ketosis doesnât happen or just sometimes. IDK why it became so popular. Maybe itâs not so scary to a normal person? But it makes no sense if it doesnât bring ketosisâŚ
Yes, many people drink on keto. It affects us more on keto, they say. I drink so tiny amounts so I canât tell. I drink so tiny amounts that it doesnât matter how sugary it is but if your amount is even remotely normal or you are sensitive or just donât want to drink sugar water, be careful. Beer is usually too carby to eat in normal amounts, some beers are lower-carb. Strong spirits tend to be zerocarb I think, mine are.
I would say⌠Only if you would feel way worse or would quit without it� Not ideal if you ask me but as a crutch for a while it may be your best choice, who knows? Try to get off from it though.
Or ignore me if your goal is keto and you arenât that health conscious or you did your research and you consider it okayâŚ
The sweeteners in it may be a problem for you or may be not. Some people avoids everything sweet on keto as it is a bad trigger for them while others couldnât do it without them.
Welcome. Glad youâre here.
All of the above can be tolerated for some keto folks. The main thing is to restrict carbs. 20 or less usually. But 50 works for others. The issue with stepping outside the keto lane is if those foods or drinks create cravings. And which type are you⌠moderation is easy and comes naturally , or you eat the whole bag, drink the entire bottle, etc.
Most of us learn as we go. Individuals vary. Just count all the carbs, not net.
You got this!
Oh yep I forgot that some count total carbs! They even say only that works for them.
I donât care about total carbs as they never seemed to matter to me but I will make experiments. Not so interesting now that I eat pretty low total on carnivore-ish and consider most item with high total and low/no net not âproperâ stuff to eat⌠But they may be great for others.
And there is no consensus about certain items with high (like 100%) carb content and allegedly way lower or zero net⌠Some experts say we should count them differently, xylitol as 100% vs 40%, erythritol⌠IDK, 50%? vs nothingâŚ
And what exactly insoluble fibers do is somewhat mysterious, we may use some part of them, I have readâŚ
Total carbs is clearer when we eat these items.
But one can just try net and if it seems to work, yay. But I already took risks with my 40g net carbs. I probably ate 100g total quite regularly (I half lived on sweets. I had no meat and had to reduce my net carbs somehow). And ketosis was no problem. But another people may have problem with 40g total even with way less net⌠So if one wants to avoid such risks, doing <20g total sounds good. If thatâs possible. I would have quit keto on the first day, I really needed time to reach my 3-20g total days I often have. They are loads better than my old 40g net days, ketosis isnât everything.
Okay I go before I overcomplicate things even more. But things ARE complicatedâŚ
As for lunchmeats and cheeses, read the list of ingredients carefully. (Donât just go by the nutrition panel, in other words.) If a form of sugar is listed, you might want to reconsider, or if there are other ingredients that indicate a greater degree of processing than you want.
If your limit is 50 g/day of carbohydrate, that should be total carbohydrate, not net (which is with the fibre subtracted from the total carb amount). The limit this site recommends is 20 g/day, whether you are counting net or total carbs. Many people feel that total is a safer limit than net. Be aware that nutrition labels vary around the world. In North America, the âcarbohydrateâ figure is total carbohydrate, whereas in other parts of the world it is net. So in North America, counting total carbs is easy, and net requires subtraction. In the rest of the world, counting net carbs is easy, and counting total requires adding the amount of fibre back in.
As for alcohol, there are wines with lower carbohydrate, but hard liquor is generally carb-free. Many forum members stick to the hard stuff. But be warnedâmany members also find that alcohol has a stronger effect on them than it did before they began a ketogenic way of eating.
Sugar-free soda pop/fizzy drinks/carbonated beverages may or may not work for you. Itâs a very individual thing, and there is no way to predict how your body will react.
There are two issues: first, the sweetness can trigger cravings, and possibly even a cephalic-phase insulin response (which is counter-productive, since our goal is to minimise insulin). Second, a number of people find that a particular artificial sweetener may stimulate insulin directly and thus interfere with their progress. Testing for this is difficult, but if you think the aspartame in sugar-free soda pop is impeding you, then give it up completely for a month or two and see if that helps. Usually, if one artificial sweetener doesnât work for someone, they can find a different sweetener that will work for them. We can help you cross that bridge, if and when you ever come to it.
For reference. Ethanol contains 7 kcals per gram and has a density of 0.785 g/ml, so for example: 50ml of 40% liquor contains 15.7 grams of ethanol = 110 kcals. When you consider that 50ml is about a âshotâ the kcalories can add up very quickly.
Blimey, is that true for America? Thatâs one heck of a shot.
In Britain, spirit measures can only be sold as 25ml or 35ml (one or the other, not both at the same premises): https://www.gov.uk/weights-measures-and-packaging-the-law/specified-quantities
Sure - you can order whatever you like, as long as the person behind the bar doesnât think youâre overly inebriated.
I was just commenting on the fact that a single shot here isnât 50ml. Weâd call that a double.
Interesting. As with everything, the US always has bigger sizes, I guess. 50ml is what I use when I make a drink. Which is odd, because itâs about 1.75 ounces.
I used 50ml for math simplicity. In Canada we can purchase 50ml sample bottles so used that as my example.
I just googled âshot of whiskeyâ and the official amount is 1.5 oz = 42 ml.
Shot is 50ml in Hungary, at least originally⌠(With reducing portions for business, one can never knows what is the actual thing, be it booze or sour cream, those did some crazy things, the original small, 200g became 180 and at some point maybe 135? I just bought bigger ones at that point as those emerged.) My SO says it may be 40ml⌠And I saw bars selling 30ml too but they have 50ml as well.
I must say these are old memories⌠We managed to drink an 50ml mini bottle of rum in 2 months with my SO, it wasnât just 1-2 occasion from my part⌠The last one was tiny, about 4ml. We shared it, of course.
But a shot is still 50ml normallyâŚ
Meanwhile milk comes in 1 liter boxes only (maybe I saw 1.5-2 but that is super rare)⌠Cream is sometimes 500ml and thatâs way too much for us.
Butter is 100, 200 or 250g.
So we donât do big normally.
(I liked the 800-850g sour cream buckets when I ate it galore though. But thatâs sour cream, basics of basics to use in big quantities. We can buy paprika in 1 kg bag too though thatâs not the norm.)
We are just very high ranked in alcoholism. But we have our famous wines too (like my old fav Tokaj wine with its 20% sugar content but it goes higher for the essence That isnât wine, thatâs a syrup).
I remember when I first came to the East Coast of the US. We went into NYC (New York City) to visit. I think I had some type of âmartiniâ drink, and was stunned at the cost. Insane.
But âmartiniâ drinks here run from gin + vermouth to all kinds of fancy drinks, often with vodka, and maybe including espresso, chocolate liquors, etc. This was when I wasnât keto, so my âmartiniâ was probably vodka + chocolate.
Oh no, it doesnât even require a family⌠It lasted some time for us two, I donât remember, probably more than a year but not much more. Buying those super tiny 100g bags (they are often on sale in one of my fav supermarket chains and they taste great) is a bit boring, of course I buy several at once except when I donât remember if we have enough at home and just buy a spicy and a sweet oneâŚ
Even now that I mostly eat eggs and roast that require none, we definitely need a significant amount of it. And this is good paprika, not a lot is needed (like from curry, oh that runs out quickly even though we make curry once in a blue moon. but paprika belongs to so many dishes). In the end I never tried to made the recipe you linked ages ago about a stew with 8 times more paprika than normal 
Never heard about such a thing Itâs good vodka goes with everything⌠But calling it martini?
@Shinita I still like that recipe, though it does have a lot of paprika in it.
I think these are called âmartinisâ only because they are in a martini glass, which looks like this (where I live, anyway):
The story goes that the drink got its name from being originally made with Martini & Rossi vermouth, but other etymologies have also been proposed.
When I was higher carb, I had some of these:
This one looks interesting:
I wonder if I could make this low carb? We have a MASSIVE bottle of vodka from Costo. I assume if I took some of that, put it in a jar, and put some vanilla beans in it, that would get me vanilla vodka. Wonder how long Iâd need to wait?
Not sure about coconut rum though. Add some coconut to rum and let sit?
Of course, have to get rid of the pineapple juice.
Could be good, though.
