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This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Cynthia Graber. This’ll just take a minute.

Here’s a strange tale of two previously¹ unrelated food products. First: chitlins, that delicacy² of fried pig large intestines³. They’re well-loved throughout the South, especially during the upcoming holiday season. But the smell of them cooking inspires significantly less affection, because the cooking process sometimes smells like, well, feces.

Researchers in Japan thought that cilantro could help, because cilantro is used in a variety of cuisines⁴ around the world to mask smells, as well as to add distinctive⁵ flavors. And in a previous study, the research team had shown that cilantro can mask the cooking-chitlin stench.

In the new research, in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, they isolated⁶ cilantro’s volatile⁷ compounds and tested each one for its odor-fighting power. Many seemed to lessen⁸ the stink⁹, but one in particular, according to human sniffers, entirely¹⁰ cancels out the odor.

It’s called (E,E)-2,4-Undecadienal. It works at a very low concentration—10 parts per billion—so you can’t smell the compound. It’s not masking the chitlin odor, it’s actually neutralizing¹¹ it. So it’s not just better living through chemistry. It’s better chitlins, too.

Thanks for the minute. For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Cynthia Graber.