choline

other nitrogen compound

Found in 527 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C5H14NO+
Molecular weight: 104.17 g/mol
PubChem CID: 305 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 2.2 ppb 1 published value · see all 1 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 139741-81-4

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

~ Likely match

FEMA number: 4500
GRAS publication: GRAS 24
FEMA primary name: Choline chloride (also includes choline)

Reported use levels (ppm by food category)

Typical vs maximum reported addition levels in finished food. Use as a regulatory ceiling reference — verify against the current GRAS publication for your product category.

Food category	Typical (ppm)	Maximum (ppm)
baked goods	2500	4000
breakfast cereal	300	600
fish products	600	1200
gravies	600	1200
meat products	600	1200
poultry	600	1200
snack foods	2500	4000
soups	600	1200

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

Published thresholds

1 measured value 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.

In a food matrix

2.2 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
2.2 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	26676937, 29686619, 30675466 +2

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 (2.215 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 1 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
laying geese diet	600000.0	270880 ⚡	—

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 choline. 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 choline in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

14 cmpds

14 cmpds

15 cmpds

15 cmpds