What is the deal with creatine??

[norgbirdie]

My husband uses creatine, but is not a vegan. So, I was wondering if there are creatine suppliments that are vegan freindly and are not full of a bunch of shit. Should I even be using it? What are the benifits? Help me out here

[Jason X]

Can Vegetarians Benefit From Creatine Supplementation?

 

Given their reduced consumption of meats, vegetarians typically possess lower than “average” creatine levels. Vegetarians hence have additional room in their muscles to absorb more creatine from the blood stream after being ingested. It is thus not surprising that scientific studies have shown that vegetarians respond quite robustly to creatine supplementation.

 

a lot, if not most creatines are vegan. get the powders instead of capsules or whatever. creatine monohydrate isn't full of "a bunch of shit" except for whatever it's bound to. When you start getting into mixes it gets confusing. As far as which ones are and aren't vegan? I know the NOW brand one is. The GNC brand one shows on the gnc website as vegan. Take it case by case. When in doubt, ask strawberryriddick (i think is his/her name)

[joelk]

Creapure branded creatine is vegan. The pure powder form is the most versatile and cost effective. Works well in my opinion

[strawberryriddick]

Powdered creatine is certainly vegan, almost always. Anyone, vegan or not, can benefit from creatine. Other than protein powder, creatine is the longest-researched and safest lifting supplement on the market. It's also being tested for other uses, like preventing muscle wasting in patients with various muscle-wasting conditions (like MS).

 

Creatine is used in ATP production, which fuels your muscles when doing an activity for less than 2 minutes at a time (anaerobic exercise). The reason for using creatine for lifting is that the average person produces enough creatine to fuel max effort for about 30 seconds. Supplementing with creatine can extend that max power out to 60 seconds. This is all on average, and assuming you're taking it properly.

 

Most creatine products just contain creatine. If in pill form, it's whatever else the pill is made of (almost always gelatin), so you won't typically find a creatine full of a bunch of extra bullshit since creatine just does what it does. Some brands do add things in there, usually sugar (you need sugar to help absorb the creatine...the ratio is 7g sugar per 1g creatine), flavors, sometimes amino acids...so read it and make sure you know what you're getting.

[ericscottf]

I use creatine plenty. There are a few things to watch out for.

There are two major types right now: Monohydrate and ethyl ester.

Monohydrate causes bloating and cramps in many people.

Ethyl ester tastes like a handful of coins-only worse.

 

I used to use mono, but i hated the feel of it so much that i didn't take it enough and didn't see much benefit. I switched to ethyl ester, and whether or not there's a huge difference in effectiveness i can't testify to, being one person, but the bloating and cramping is reduced to --zero--. YMMV, but that may be because I'm a one person sample, or because it doesn't do anything -- i don't know.

 

I get the ethyl ester pills from labrada. They have a starch coating. The only times creatine isn't vegan is when it is mixed into crazy ass powders with animals in them or if it is in a pill capsule that's made of bone slime (gelatin). There's a reason that it is hard to find ethyl ester as a powder -- it tastes remarkably bad, so much that when i threw it into a shake, it ruined the whole thing. at first, i thought I'd used rotten fruits by accident or some such.

 

I'm also firmly in the camp that vegans benefit from creatine because of our lack of animals. It isn't a steroid, however. It will allow you to recover from hard work more quickly and get more exercise in. It won't make that exercise count for more. It lets you work/push yourself harder, it doesn't make that work count for any more than it would have without it.

 

Also, i don't buy the huge dosage suggestions on the bottles. They've been steadily rising for the past 15 years, and never take bodyweight into account. i take about a quarter of what the bottles today are recommending (it'll be 1/8th in a few years, I'm sure)

[Eksster]

Interesting stuff. Yes, I always thought that since from a meat based diet you ingest creatine, and nothing vegans eat contain it naturally, that it might make sense to take small doses. After all, it's a naturally occurring substance in all mammals right?!

[TripleH]

I bought GP3 from GNC - it's a combo of 7g Creatine / 7g Glutamine / 12.5g BCAA's per serving (8 caps) - while they come in gelatin caps, I just pop the caps open and throw the powder mixture into 1/3c juice.

[Jason X]

Well that isn't any better! Rather than consume the animal product, you'll just buy it than throw it away? Might wanna rethink that one.

[chrisjs]

The glutamine is useless as well.

[medman]

Well that isn't any better! Rather than consume the animal product, you'll just buy it than throw it away? Might wanna rethink that one.

 

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking...