linoleic acid

dairy acid

Found in 22 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

Properties

Odor description: faint fatty
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 0.850 ppb – 66.0 ppb median 6.2 ppb · 6 published values · see all 6 with sources
CAS number: 60-33-3
Retention index: 2182

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

? Partial match

FEMA number: 4821
GRAS publication: GRAS 28
CAS number: 1444005-46-2
FEMA primary name: gamma-Aminobutyric acid:Linoleic acid conjugates

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	0.02	0.5
beverages, alcoholic	0.0002	0.005
beverages, non-alcoholic	0.01	0.25
breakfast cereals	0.02	0.5
cheeses	0.02	0.5
chewing gum	0.02	0.5
condiments and relishes	0.01	0.25
confections and frostings	0.01	0.25
egg products	0.01	0.25
fats and oils	0.02	0.5
fish products	0.01	0.25
frozen dairy	0.01	0.5
fruit ices	0.01	0.25
gelatins and puddings	0.01	0.25
gravies	0.01	0.25
hard candy	0.02	0.5
imitation dairy	0.02	0.5
instant coffee and tea	0.0002	0.005
jams and jellies	0.01	0.25
meat products	0.02	0.5
milk products	0.01	0.25
nut products	0.002	0.05
other grains	0.002	0.05
poultry	0.02	0.5
processed fruits	0.01	0.25
processed vegetables	0.01	0.25
reconstituted vegetables	0.01	0.25
seasonings and flavors	0.01	0.25
snack foods	0.01	0.25
soft candy	0.01	0.25
soups	0.01	0.25
sugar substitutes	0.005	0.15
sweet sauces	0.005	0.15

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. 1 related FEMA record for this name — verify the exact substance for regulatory use.

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.

faint fatty shown above FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

faint, fatty 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

6 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.

In a food matrix

0.850 ppb – 66.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.850 ppb	water (food: strawberry)	Literature corpus	17898464, 19282638, 19320050 +27
3.3 ppb	water (food: beef)	Literature corpus	17898464, 19282638, 19320050 +27
5.5 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	34179519, 39242718
7.0 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	19282638, 19320050, 23758650 +23
20.4 ppb	water (food: milk)	Literature corpus	21534545
66.0 ppb	water (food: chocolate)	Literature corpus	17898464

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 (6.2255 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 6 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
amaranth	300.0	48.2 ⚡	Corpus paper
standard drosophila diet	190.0	30.5 ⚡	Corpus paper
tea	170.3	27.4 ⚡	Corpus paper
milk	75.0	12.1 ⚡	Corpus paper
beef	1.3	0.21	Corpus paper
strawberry	0.9	0.14	Corpus paper
chocolate	0.7	0.11	Corpus paper

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 linoleic acid. 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 linoleic acid in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

451 cmpds

28 cmpds

29 cmpds

54 cmpds