A supplement that’s long been used by fitness professionals to build muscle may be showing up in your local MRE: Congress may soon require the military to include creatine in MREs, a staple of field nutrition across the military.
The measure was included in the House-passed Fiscal Year 2025 defense policy bill. It will need final House and Senate approval before being added to the final defense bill. An official with the Natural Products Association, which represents organic food and dietary supplement manufacturers and retailers, told Task & Purpose that the creatine language was added to the bill by the House Republican majority.
The House bill, if it becomes law, is lacking in specifics. It “encourages” the Department of Defense to add creatine to MREs, stating that “extensive clinical research has shown that creatine enhances muscle growth, physical performance, strength training, post-exercise recovery, and injury prevention.”
The use of creatine as a fitness supplement is not new, but it has grown in popularity in recent years. Fitness influencers on social media frequently Creatine variations for muscle building and recovery.
In the military, A series of studies on active-duty military personnel from 10 years ago The study found that one in three special operations soldiers regularly use creatine as a supplement, but that creatine intake is far less among the military population overall.
Other fitness supplements have been introduced into the military since the basic training stage, when army recruits are given supplements. Performance Ready BarLt. Col. Randy Reddy, a spokesman for the Army’s Center for Initial Military Training, said the supplements, which are fortified with calcium and vitamin D, “promote muscle growth and strengthen bones in trainees.”
Military commissaries on bases offer protein powders, energy drinks, and sometimes creatine. The Department of Defense also sells creatine. Nutritional Supplement ResourcesIt is also known as “Operation Supplement Safety.”
Brian Schilling, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who teaches courses on human performance for military and emergency medical personnel and has done research for the U.S. military, believes adding creatine to MREs might help troops who already use supplements “maintain their creatine levels a little longer,” but that he doesn’t think it would “provide a significant benefit to people who aren’t using creatine.”
“For example, I don’t take creatine as a supplement and all of a sudden I see creatine in my MRE and I think it’s going to improve my performance. I just don’t think that’s going to happen,” Schilling said.
For regular creatine users, Schilling agrees that it makes sense to take creatine supplements in MREs to maintain muscle mass in the tough environments the military may find itself in.
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“It may help people maintain some muscle mass if they are placed in adverse conditions, such as a battlefield, where they are unable to eat and behave as they normally would,” he said.
The Army is advising soldiers to consult with a military registered dietitian (RD). Holistic Health and Fitness Performance teams have nutritionists on-site, and soldiers without H2F teams can consult with nutritionists at military treatment facilities or Army Wellness Centers.
Science
According to the DOD, not everyone will get the same physical benefits from using creatine due to personal factors such as diet.
“Some people will respond better than others. For example, because dietary creatine is primarily found in meat, vegetarians tend to have lower creatine concentrations in their muscles and are therefore more likely to respond well to creatine supplementation,” the Department of Defense said.
Creatine may have a positive effect on “strength, power, sprint performance, and muscle mass in strength-training athletes.” According to the Department of Defense’s supplement resources page, there is limited evidence that creatine improves aerobic capacity and endurance.
2016 Review of Creatine Research in the Military Creatine usage and effectiveness has been found to vary: A 2010 survey found that one in three special operations forces reported using creatine as a supplement, but a survey of military personnel in general found that only 5% of all troops use creatine regularly.
Studies on military personnel, ranging from Army recruits just entering basic training to 24 Navy SEALs, have come up with vaguely similar results. They found that creatine helps with strength training exercises like bench pressing, chin-ups, and jumping, but has little effect on endurance events like running or obstacle courses. Creatine’s benefits seem to be more pronounced in troops who aren’t yet in peak physical condition, such as basic trainees, than in special operations troops, who tend to exercise more regularly.
But Schilling said that for military purposes, the limited benefit of increased endurance doesn’t outweigh the overall benefit to soldiers who need to be “jacks of all trades.”
“You might have to run miles and miles with a pack on your back, but you might have to sprint, so you need to have a little bit of everything. I don’t think there’s necessarily a trade-off where if you take this, you’re going to have less endurance,” he said. “It might not lead to better endurance, but maintaining muscle mass will lead to better performance across the board.”
There are many different types of creatine on the market, but Schilling said it’s mostly a marketing ploy in the supplement industry, with companies claiming that taking creatine will make you feel less bloated – and he said “bloating” isn’t always accurate.
“When you’re in the field, you want to have as much water in your body as possible,” he said. “It’s the same with carbohydrate supplementation, because for every gram of carbohydrate, you’re going to have three grams of water in your body, so it’s very similar to carbohydrate supplementation.”
