Eggs are a protein food that are jam-packed with 9 essential amino acids for your health. Not only do eggs help feed your brain, improve your eyes, are a high source of biotin plus vitamin D, but they also have more protein than any meat. The 9 essential amino acids in eggs are listed below, but first, a quick primer on essential versus non-essential amino acids and what that means…
Essential amino acids vs. non-essential amino acids
“Essential” does not mean necessary, but rather that the 9 essential amino acids must be gotten through diet. “Non-essential” means that your body can produce the amino acids on its own, without dietary supplementation. In cases where the 9 essential amino acids can come from the food we eat, it is usually enough for our bodies to produce what it needs to survive.
9 essential amino acids in eggs
The list of 9 essential amino acids (plus the list of non-essential aminos) found in eggs and other proteins like beef, chicken, and fish, include:
| Essential | Nonessential |
| Histidine | Alanine |
| Isoleucine | Arginine |
| Leucine | Aspartic acid |
| Lysine | Cysteine |
| Methionine | Glutamic acid |
| Phenylalanine | Glutamine |
| Threonine | Glycine |
| Tryptophan | Proline |
| Valine | Serine |
| Tyrosine | |
| Asparagine | |
| Selenocysteine |
Each of these 9 essential amino acids are good for different purposes in the human body. And remember, eggs are a near-perfect protein, containing all 9 essential amino acids and 12 non-essential amino acids combined.
Reference: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19759170
