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oleic acid

sour acid

Found in 347 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of oleic acid
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C18H34O2
Molecular weight
282.5 g/mol
PubChem CID
445639 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description
fat
Odor threshold — in a food matrix
0.280 ppb – 697 ppb median 8.8 ppb · 11 published values · see all 11 with sources
Volatility
low
CAS number
112-80-1
Retention index
2184
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match
FEMA number
2815
GRAS publication
GRAS 3
FEMA primary name
OLEIC ACID

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.

fat shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree
—
at 10.00 - 20.00 ppm. FlavorDB 2.0
294
faint, fat, fatty, fried, lard, waxy FlavorDB 2.0
70

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

11 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

0.280 ppb – 697 ppb

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

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.040 ppb water (food: rum) Literature corpus 34652538
Flagged: 221× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
0.280 ppb water (food: beef) Literature corpus 21534545, 23326358, 26368045 +32
0.686 ppb water (food: honey) Literature corpus 41306594
1.9 ppb water (food: mushroom) Literature corpus 40855247
3.4 ppb water (food: tea) Literature corpus 34179519, 39242718
8.8 ppb water (food: unknown) Literature corpus 23326358, 26368045, 28963525 +19
20.5 ppb water (food: milk) Literature corpus 21534545
27.6 ppb water (food: fish) Literature corpus 36950329
79.9 ppb water (food: rice) Literature corpus 35762564, 40284053, 40468875 +1
697 ppb water (food: tomato) Literature corpus 38253713
4070 ppb water (food: peanut) Literature corpus 39512543
Flagged: 461× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

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.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain oleic 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 oleic acid in it.

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