WHAT IS SUNFLOWER OIL?
Sunflower oil has many purposes. For example, as medicine, treatment for skin ailments, and even as a food additive due to its mild flavor and high smoke point within dishes. The sunflower — also known as Helianthus annuus — for many years has symbolized happiness with their bright yellow cheerful petals. Sunflowers are a flower that is easy to cultivate in many different climates. Indeed, sunflower are a great way to brighten any garden. The sunflower has a very distinct look and feel. It has a hairy stem that averages 1 – 4.5 meters in height. The leaves are coarse and are anywhere from 7.5 to 30cm long. The seeds produce the oil.
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF SUNFLOWER OIL?
The sunflower’s origins date back to roughly 1000 B.C. in North America. When europeans explored the New World — the popularity of the sunflower spread, gaining appreciation for its beauty and nourishment around the 1600s. In this current day, sunflowers remain a highly recommended flower for its charm and ‘delightful disposition’. The first mention of sunflower in the literature was in the late 1760’s. Seventy years later, the sunflower oils
WHERE DOES SUNFLOWER OIL COME FROM?
In 2019, Ukraine was the greatest producer of sunflower oil with Russia following second and Argentina in 3rd place. Within the decade, the production of sunflower oil globally has scaled up by 78%. TRIDE data reveals that in 2020, Ukraine took first in export of sunflower oil, with an estimated value of $4.7B. This alone accounted for half (54.4%) of sunflower seed oil produced and exported for global trade in 2020 alone. Even in 2016, farmers still Ukraine managed to contribute substantially to the global trade of sunflower and its by products such as sunflower oil, producing and collecting 13.8 million tons of sunflower, outperforming their closest rivals, Russia despite difficult weather conditions.
HOW DO YOU MAKE SUNFLOWER OIL?
Generally, the process consists of cleaning of the seeds, grinding them down, and then pressing to extract oil from the seeds. First, you need to acquire your seeds and clean them! Then you will need to de-hull them By removing the outer part of the seed. Then, you ground the seed to create uniform fine particles. Afterwards, heat the crushed seeds to enable oil extraction. The heated meal is then fed into a screw press which increases pressure progressively.
The remaining oil cake still retains some amount of oil. The most used solvent is hexane, which dissolves the oil out of the cake and makes the oil distilled. The distillation process separates the solvent from the oil. Next you boil the oil so the remaining solvent disappears.
Next up is refining. The common practices within this process involve degumming, neutralizing, bleaching and deodorizing the oil. This further eliminates contaminants such as phosphatides, pro-oxidants and free fatty acids. Sun
ARE THERE ALTERNATIVE METHODS?
All these sound a bit technical? Well after de-hauling your seeds, you can place them into a blender to replicate finely grounding them into a meal. You can add a bit of water to avoid sticking to the sides of the blender. Then transfer the paste into a strainer over a bowl and massage. You should begin to have some oil drop collected in the bowl. Repeat this till no more oil is collected. Take the strained paste (seed cake) and place in a roasting pan for 20 minutes at 150-degree Celsius, turning and sifting through every 5 minutes. When done, repeat the earlier step by placing the paste into a strainer. The leftover cake makes an excellent bird feed and, in the bowl, below, you would have your own home-made sunflower oil. You can also buy a special oil press if you find this process a bit tedious. Bottle your oil into your preferred container for storage and preservation and use as required.
WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH SUNFLOWER OIL?
Sunflower oil is often touted as healthy, seeing as it contains unsaturated fats that provide many benefits to the heart’s health. However, “too much of everything is bad” and the benefits of the oil depends on the type and composition of nutrients in it. Additionally, this oil can be used in cosmetic products as this is a mild extension to their medicinal benefits to the body. Seeing as this oil greatly aids in hair-loss treatment and baldness, you would find it in a lot of hair products. The application of the oil for hair loss and treatment are numerous and proper care is necessary. A quick search to BBC Food with the query ‘Sunflower Oil’ would throw you a couple of recipes to cycle through and try out. The possibilities of what can be made with this oil in the kitchen are limitless and so try out a couple.
WHAT ARE THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF SUNFLOWER OIL?
Given the composition of Sunflower oil, it is not necessarily startling that most of the alleged benefits are associated with varying levels of oleic acid. Research shows that diets rich in oleic acids may help reduce cholesterol levels and thus reducing your risk of a heart disease. Further studies even revealed that diets rich in oleic sunflower oil led to significant increases in HDL cholesterol (the good one) and decreases in LDL cholesterol (the bad one) in comparison with diets without oleic sunflower oil.
Containing both poly-unsaturated and mono-unsaturated fatty acids, being an excellent source of vitamin V-complex and other minerals, sunflower seed oil becomes one of the excellent and preferred choices for cooking. Sunflower oil aids with weight loss and improves digestion. High amounts of tocopherol in sunflower oil and vitamin E also benefit the body with healthy hair.
Overall, this oil provides adequate nutrients to boost the immune system with linoleic acid. It prevents Asthma and Cancer also. On the side of mental health, magnesium in sunflower oil works towards mood disorders such as anxiety or depression. The ions regulate calcium ions flow, in turn regulating the neuronal nitric oxide production. To put simply, it reduces depression and anxiety.
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