Dietary creatine monohydrate has no effect on pork quality of Danish crossbred pigs K. Rosenvold a, * , H.C. Bertram b , J.F. Young b a Danish Meat Research Institute, Department of Pork and Beef Quality, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark b Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Food Science, Research Centre Foulum, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark. Received 22 June 2006; received in revised form 23 October 2006; accepted 30 October 2006 Abstract Creatine content in the muscle may delay postmortem lactate formation and postpone the pH decline, hence potentially improving the water-holding capacity (WHC) as shown in a previous study including purebred Duroc pigs, although the same study did not find any effect on meat from purebred Landrace pigs. In the present study Danish D(LY) crossbreeds were supplemented with 0 or 50 g creatine monohydrate (CMH)/d for five days prior to the slaughter. CMH supplementation had no effect on meat quality indicators (pH and temperature), meat quality attributes (WHC and colour) or eating quality (juiciness and tenderness) of meat from the D(LY) crossbred pigs. As a consequence the D(LY) crossbreed was classified as a non-responder to CMH supplementation. Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Creatine monohydrate; Crossbreed; Responder; WHC; Colour; Juiciness 1. Introduction In human studies, dietary creatine has been shown to increase total muscle creatine (Balsom, So ¨ derlund, Sjo ¨ din, & Ekblom, 1995), of which approximately two-thirds is cre- atine phosphate (Balsom, So ¨derlund, & Ekblom, 1994; Casey, Constantin-Teodosiu, Howell, Hultman, & Green- haff, 1996). Increased levels of creatine phosphate are believed to increase maximum and total work capacity (Casey & Greenhaff, 2000) and to reduce the recovery per- iod after exercise (Balsom et al., 1995). Creatine supplemen- tation has also been shown to improve anaerobic performance in elite rowers (Chwalbinska-Moneta, 2003). In pig muscle, improved anaerobic performance may delay lactate formation in the muscle under the anaerobic condi- tions arising shortly after exsanguination. A delayed lactate formation will postpone the pH decline postmortem and may consequently improve meat quality as the water-hold- ing capacity (WHC) is related to the temperature and the pH of the muscle during its conversion to meat (Bendall, 1960; Bendall & Swatland, 1988; Scha ¨fer, Rosenvold, Pur- slow, Andersen, & Henckel, 2002). Thus, low pH and high temperature decreases the WHC. Consequently, on the basis of a postponed pH decline, and probably increased intracellular osmotic pressure caused by the creatine phos- phate (Hultman, So ¨ derlund, Timmons, Cederblad, & Greenhaff, 1996), Berg and Allee (2001) proposed a hypoth- esis of increased WHC in meat from pigs supplemented with creatine. Alteration in the water mobility has been indicated in several studies by tendencies to greater myofibre hydra- tion (Berg & Allee, 2001), reduced cooking loss (Maddock et al., 2002) and increased WHC (James et al., 2002). Fur- thermore, Ruusunen and Puolanne (1997) suggested that differences in muscle composition between breeds may have an impact on the overall metabolism in the muscle. A study investigated the interactions between purebred pigs (Duroc and Landrace) and dietary supplementation of creatine monohydrate in relation to WHC, colour and juiciness of pork (Young, Bertram, Rosenvold, Lindahl, & Oksbjerg, 0309-1740/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.meatsci.2006.10.023 * Corresponding author. Present address: AgResearch MIRINZ, Ruak- ura Research Centre, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand. Tel.: +45 46 30 30 30; fax: +45 46 30 31 32. E-mail address: kro@danishmeat.dk (K. Rosenvold). www.elsevier.com/locate/meatsci Meat Science 76 (2007) 160–164 MEAT SCIENCE