Let’s take a moment to talk about amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Embalming can, in part, be defined as the use of chemicals to stabilize proteins.  That being said, the reaction between embalming chemicals and proteins really occurs at the amino acids level.

There are over 500 amino acids that exist in nature.  Of that there are about 20 that are necessary for human life.  The number is debatable but for our purposes let’s assume the magic number is 20.  Of these 20, there are two groups.  Some of these amino acids are produced through metabolism and others we don’t produce. We must get them through food stuff.

An amino acid produced by our body is referred to as non-essential.

If we have to obtain from food, because we can’t synthesize them, they are called essential.   

And here is our mnemonic. 

Of the twenty amino acids, 12 are made by our cells! The rest are obtained by eating food.  Some simple arithmetic (20-12) gives us that the remaining number of amino acids is eight.

The number of essential amino acids is eight, and you eat them to get them.

You ate the eight.