What Is the pH of Vegetable Oil?

Close-Up Of Olive Oil Pouring On Spoon From Container Against White Background
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By
Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.
Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.
Chemistry Expert
  • Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
  • B.A., Physics and Mathematics, Hastings College
Dr. Helmenstine holds a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences and is a science writer, educator, and consultant. She has taught science courses at the high school, college, and graduate levels.
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Updated on November 30, 2019
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By Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.

In chemistry, pH is a scale used to measure the relative acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution—that is, one in which a solute (salt, sugar, etc.) is dissolved in water. Because only aqueous solutions have pH levels, vegetable oil has no pH value. Likewise, other oils such as animal and petrochemical oils also have no pH value.

Acidity as it relates to flavor should not be confused with an oil's fatty acid content. Fatty acids are organic molecules often found in foods, including vegetable oils. Olive oil consists primarily of oleic acid, with smaller quantities of palmitoleic acid and linoleic acid. The purest olive oils have a very low volume of free fatty acids (less than 2%). These acids, again, have nothing to do with pH levels.

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Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "What Is the pH of Vegetable Oil?" ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/the-ph-of-vegetable-oil-608887. Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. (2020, August 28). What Is the pH of Vegetable Oil? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-ph-of-vegetable-oil-608887 Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "What Is the pH of Vegetable Oil?" ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-ph-of-vegetable-oil-608887 (accessed April 23, 2024).