Time for a chemistry lesson. Amino acids are, broadly speaking, organic compounds that are the most fundamental building blocks of proteins. They are organic compounds that are classified according to the location of the functional group, but there are other methods of categorization. Proteins, in case you don’t know, are used for a wide variety of things in the human body, and just about those of every living creature on Earth. They’re used in muscles, hair, etc. Point being, you wouldn’t be able to so much as stand wherever you are right now without them. 

Technically speaking, there are over 500 amino acids that naturally occur in nature. However, the most important are the 22 amino acids, alpha-amino acids, that are incorporated into proteins. They even have a special name: proteinogenic amino acids. Appropriately named because they are the proteins that are incorporated into protein folding during the translation phase. 

The first amino acids were discovered as recently as the early 1800s; appropriately enough for a website about food, the first ones were discovered after being isolated from asparagus.Research into these compounds has come quite a long way from back then. From uses in the creating feed for livestock, enriching foods for human consumption, or in the synthesis of  a few cosmetics, they are used in quite a few facets of our lives. 

More theoretical uses include for the creation of different biodegradable plastics and fertilizers. On the former topic, research into it has been going as far back as 1997 with the use of amino acids as a plasticizer for various starch based plastics. However, that is all that we will address for now. As I am sure that you can imagine, it is a very interesting topic that there is not enough space for here for me to adequately address.