🧠 Mnemonic to Remember Essential Amino Acids
Let’s create an easy mnemonic to remember the 9 essential amino acids:
🎓 “MATT HILL VP”
(Imagine a strong person named “Matt Hill VP” – like a superhero with a suit!)
Each letter stands for one essential amino acid:
- M → Methionine
- A → (used for the A in Arginine sometimes, but we skip it since Arginine is non-essential for adults)
- T → Threonine
- T → Tryptophan
- H → Histidine
- I → Isoleucine
- L → Leucine
- L → Lysine
- V → Valine
- P → Phenylalanine
👉 Remember: Histidine is essential only for infants (babies) because their bodies are still developing and can’t make enough of it.
🍽️ Where Do We Get Essential Amino Acids From?
You can get essential amino acids by eating:
- Animal sources: meat, eggs, milk, fish, chicken (these are called complete proteins because they have all essential amino acids)
- Plant sources: beans, lentils, nuts, whole grains (some may lack one or two amino acids, so people often combine them, like rice + beans)
💬 Summary in Simple Words
- Your body needs 20 types of amino acids to build proteins.
- Out of these, it can make 11 on its own. These are called non-essential because you don’t have to get them from food.
- The other 9 amino acids must come from food. These are called essential amino acids.
- If you don’t get enough essential amino acids, your body can’t grow, repair, or function properly.
Here’s a simpler version of the mnemonic for non-essential amino acids:
“Aunt Aysha Always Asked Cute Girls, Playful Sisters To Sing”
This corresponds to the 11 non-essential amino acids:
- A → Alanine
- A → Arginine
- A → Asparagine
- A → Aspartic acid
- C → Cysteine
- G → Glutamic acid
- G → Glutamine
- P → Proline
- S → Serine
- T → Tyrosine
Breakdown:
- Aunt = Alanine
- Agatha = Arginine
- Always = Asparagine
- Asked = Aspartic acid
- Cute = Cysteine
- Girls = Glutamic acid
- Playful = Glutamine
- Sisters = Proline
- To = Serine
- Sing = Tyrosine