Influence of dietary creatine monohydrate and carcass cooling rate on colour characteristics of pork loin from different pure breeds

Increased creatine content in the muscle may delay postmortem (pm) lactate formation and postpone pH decline, hence potentially affect the colour of pork. The influence of dietary supplementation with 0 or 50 g creatine monohydrate (CMH)/d for 5 days prior to slaughter and two cooling rates of pig carcasses on the colour characteristics of pork loin from purebred Duroc and Landrace pigs was investigated. CMH increased the content of creatine phosphate in pork loin measured immediately following bleeding, delayed early pm pH decline and gave rise to less red and yellow colour, probably due to induction of a more pronounced oxidative muscle metabolism. A faster cooling rate pm induced darker and less yellow colour in loins from Duroc and Landrace pigs, while only loins from Landrace became less red. Loins from Duroc pigs were darker, less red and less yellow than loins from Landrace pigs, due to slower pH decline and a higher ultimate pH in these loins. Colour stability of pork loin during chill storage, measured as oxidation to metmyoglobin, was not affected by dietary CMH, cooling rate or pig breed. Consequently, the registered differences in colour between treatments during storage were merely due to the degree of initial blooming, and more attention to factors of importance for the degree of blooming should be in focus in future studies of factors of importance for meat colour.