Dietary creatine mainly comes from animal muscle (meat and fish), plus a smaller amount that your own body makes from amino acids in the liver, kidneys, and pancreas.

Quick Scoop

1. The simple answer

When you eat foods like beef, pork, chicken, and fish, you’re literally eating the creatine that was stored in that animal’s muscles. That’s why meat‑eaters usually get more dietary creatine than vegetarians or vegans.

2. Main food sources

Most of the creatine in a typical diet comes from:

  • Red meat (beef, pork, lamb).
  • Fish (especially herring, salmon, tuna, cod).
  • Poultry (chicken, turkey), but in somewhat lower amounts than red meat or certain fish.

Typical example:

  • Beef or salmon: roughly 1–2 g creatine per pound (about 450 g) of raw meat.

Plant foods have only trace amounts, so they contribute very little to total dietary creatine.

3. Your body’s “internal” creatine

Even if you never touched a supplement, your body can synthesize creatine on its own from three amino acids: arginine, glycine, and methionine. This happens mainly in your liver and kidneys (with some help from the pancreas), and then the creatine is transported to your muscles and brain.

On average:

  • About half of your daily creatine comes from food.
  • The other half is made internally from those amino acids.

4. What about supplements?

Creatine powders (usually creatine monohydrate) are lab‑made versions of the same molecule your body uses. They don’t come from animals; they’re synthesized from chemical precursors and then purified into a stable powder that mimics naturally occurring creatine in food.

For context:

  • A normal mixed diet gives around 1–3 g creatine per day.
  • Many supplement protocols use 3–5 g per day to raise muscle creatine stores beyond typical dietary levels.

5. Tiny forum-style take

So “where does dietary creatine come from?” Mostly from other animals’ muscles (meat and fish), plus a backup supply made in your liver and kidneys from amino acids. Vegans get very little from food, so they rely almost entirely on that internal production or choose a synthetic supplement.

TL;DR: Dietary creatine = mainly meat and fish, with smaller amounts your body makes from amino acids; vegans get almost none from food and often consider supplemental creatine instead.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.