We’ve known about the importance and interesting properties of creatine for well over 30 years now, and every year or so, more evidence emerge beyond the initial benefits of creatine simply being a key nutrient for short physical bursts and explosive movements, especially when it comes to cognition and mental health. Now, this should not be surprising. In fact, it’s highly logical, as it is a nutrient found in abundance in meat. That in itself is an indication that it is of tremendous importance. Everything our body store and can be found in tissue is of great importance for the body in order to work optimally and as intended.
The reason I bring this subject up again is that it caught my attention as I scrolled by the latest articles over at T-Nation and their Co-founder TC Luoma had recently written a piece on it after looking at some meta-studies/literature reviews from 2021 and 2019.
While these reviews do not tell us anything we already figured out years, or even decades ago, it is a subject worth bringing to light again as it is part of a bigger problem, the problem of an over-indulgence of food stuffs and energy density while at the same time having a lack of important and essential nutrients. In other words, most food today is simply energy and full of chemicals and other toxic crap while being almost totally void of nutrition, as in vitamins, minerals, and certain amino acid based compounds such as creatine.
As for the role of creatine, Russian researchers (Korovljev, 2021) found that a lack of creatine stunned the growth of children between the age of 2- and 19-years-old. Each additional 0.1 g of creatine ingested per day equated to an additional 0.60 cm of height. In other words, parents not giving enough meat to their kids will stunt their growth.
Creatine, like many vitamins, also seem to play a key role in the brain development in children. In other words, parents not giving enough meat to their kids will impair their cognitive ability, severely hampering their intelligence.
And in adults, lack of creatine seems to inhibit cognitive functions as well, and also obstructing normal energy flow and leading to neuromuscular and cardiometabolic diseases, especially kidney and liver problems.
And now for the kicker, according to a 20-year-long study of 89,161 participants, creatine consumption is decreasing almost yearly and at least 69% of people are not getting enough creatine and are thus suffering from the problems in various degrees as mentioned above.
With that in mind, then take into consideration the enormous importance of animal fat, cholesterol, and vitamins such as A, D and all the B-vitamins for metabolic and cognitive health – vitamins and fats that are virtually non-existing in plant based-foods and only found in animal-based foods. With all this in mind, it’s actually quite obvious why most people are gullible zombies, simply strolling along like lemmings and believing everything the lying media and their government tells them. Dumbing down is not only done by the educational system, the media and entertainment system, but mainly by what the majority of people put in their pie hole. While creatine plays a part, most people are malnourished. It does not matter how much food you consume if it’s void of essential nutrients.
And this is the real problem. The lack of animal-based foods in most people diets. The lack of our species-appropriate, species-specific nutrition. The only source of bioavailable nutrients.
Most people only consume food for energy and they have been fooled into believing that vegetables and other plant-based foods such as nuts and seeds contains vitamins and minerals that we can absorb. That is not the case. They are not bioavailable, and these foods are very toxic. And thus, we have a real epidemic of malnutrition, of nutritional deficiencies. And that is also the underlaying cause to a lot of diseases and especially the dumbing down and sheep mentality that we can clearly see in today’s society – and it will only get worse as the evil people in power keeps pushing to remove animal products, the nutrition we so desperately need, the key to life.
For more on this subject of our species-appropriate, species-specific nutrition and bioavailability, please read these articles:
- Our natural species appropriate diet. One “diet” to rule them all?
- Understanding Nutrition and Breaking Free from Ideology and Pseudoscience
- Meat and animal foods. It’s not only about protein, ya know…
- Food labels are mostly nonsense, what matters is what you actually absorb
And as for creatine, the only sources are meat, fish, poultry and dairy. Like so much else, it’s only found in animal-products. Of course, it’s available as a supplement, and it’s one of the few supplements that works and are not toxic. However, if you’re not a top elite athlete and you need to rely on supplements, well, then your diet sucks. Needing supplements simply to avoid deficiencies is not natural and it’s not sustainable.
While our body can synthesize some amounts of creatine in the liver from the amino acids arginine, glycine, and methionine, this process depends on your over-all health status. If you have nutrition deficiencies the process, like all other processes, will be hampered. And if you mostly consume plant-based sources of protein, you will severely lack in the amino acids required. In other words, you do not only get creatine from meat, you also get the amino acids your body requires to manufacture its own creatine, and everything else, for that matter.
As for creatine requirements, most people would be fine with an additional 1 to 3 grams daily of creatine supplied by their diet, depending on body size and activity levels. For bodybuilders and strength athletes, 3 to 5 grams a day is more than sufficient. Going above that will not bring any more benefits, but might give you the runs instead.
The content of creatine per 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) of raw product is:
Herring: 6.5 – 10 g
Pork: 5 g
Mutton: 5 g
Venison: 5 g
Beef: 4.5 g
Salmon: 4.5 g
Tuna: 4 g
Chicken: 3.4 g
Cod: 3 g
Beef Steak: 2.5 gNuts, Seeds & Grains: 0 gVegetables: 0 gFruits: 0 g
Now, keep in mind that a tiny bit of creatine will be lost if you cook your meat, just as some minerals and trace minerals might be lost with the meat juices. The more you cook it, the more is lost. This goes for vitamins as well once you heat it above 40 to 45 degrees Celsius. Always consume your meat lightly cooked and as rare as possible.
If you’re somewhat active and athletic, aiming for just above 2 grams of creatine a day would require about 500 grams (1.1 lbs.) of beef a day. If mostly inactive and of normal build, 250 grams (0.55 lbs.) of beef a day would suffice from keeping you deficient.
The studies/references:
Temporal trends in dietary creatine intake from 1999 to 2018: an ecological study with 89,161 participants.
Korovljev Darinka, et al.
J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2021 Jun 30;18(1):53. PubMed 24.
Creatine is a Conditionally Essential Nutrient in Chronic Kidney Disease: A Hypothesis and Narrative Literature Review.
Post Adrian, et al.
Nutrients. 2019 May 10;11(5):1044. PubMed 8.