4-heptenal

green aldehyde Key food odorant

Found in 15 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C7H12O
Molecular weight: 112.17 g/mol
PubChem CID: 71590 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (intermediary)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description: creamy, biscuit, cooked cream, fatty
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 0.500 ppb – 0.800 ppb median 0.650 ppb · 2 published values · see all 12 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 6728-31-0
Retention index: 900

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

~ Likely match

FEMA number: 3349
GRAS publication: GRAS 6
FEMA primary name: 4-HEPTENAL DIETHYL ACETAL

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

How this molecule is described

Sources disagree about odour more often than they disagree about chemistry. Rather than show one answer, here is every description on file with how many ingredient records carry it.

Descriptions on file

Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is still replication — one source copied onto many ingredients scores high there — so the two can disagree.

biscuit, cream Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 4 sources agree

sharp green milky creamy tea FlavorDB 2.0

burnt, fatty, butter, cheesy, sweaty FlavorDB 2.0

green FlavorDB 2.0

stale aroma FlavorDB 2.0

boiled potato-like FlavorDB 2.0

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Published thresholds

12 measured values from the literature. Grouped by what was actually measured — a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted in the mouth, or measured in a real food are three different quantities and are not pooled.

Orthonasal, in clean water

0.500 ppb – 0.800 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.500 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—
0.800 ppb SIDA	water_odor	Leffingwell	32251584

In a food matrix

0.009 ppb – 21.5 ppb

Measured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.009 ppb SIDA	water (food: green tea infusion (jingshan cha))	Literature corpus	33714268, 32251584, 10552650 +1
0.009 ppb SIDA	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	33714268, 32251584, 10552650 +1
0.025 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	33714268, 32251584, 10552650 +1
0.980 ppb SIDA	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	32251584
21.5 ppb	water (food: milk)	Literature corpus	10552650, 39479676
234 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	33714268
Flagged: 466× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

Retronasal / in-mouth

0.060 ppb – 1.0 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.060 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
1.0 ppb SIDA	oil_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Other matrix

2.0 ppb – 3.0 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
2.0 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
3.0 ppb SIDA	cellulose	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium's licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted here, so every number on this page traces to a citable source.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (0.8 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 12 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
potato	810.0	1012 ⚡	PMC11719381

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 4-heptenal. Ingredients with a measured concentration come first, ranked by odour activity; the rest follow by how large a share of that ingredient's profile this molecule is. The figure beside each is how many different compounds that ingredient has in total — not the concentration of 4-heptenal in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

13 cmpds

32 cmpds

36 cmpds

44 cmpds