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The Beauty and Benefits of Sunflowers

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Stop and Smell the Sunflowers

You can't mistake a sunflower. It's impossible to mistake a sunflower.

It's a distinctive, golden-flowering plant, Helianthus annuus, full of seeds which contain a yellow, sweet oil. Apart from the golden beauty, sunflowers are incredibly useful. The valuable edible oil has more Vitamin E than any other vegetable oil, the flowers yield a yellow dye, and the seeds are eaten dried or roasted.

What more benefit can a plant be? How more lovely is this flower, with such a bright golden beauty that has captured the sunshine of a hundred sunny days.

Contents at a Glance

The Sunflower in Mythology
Van Gogh's Sunflowers
Sunflower Oil
Recipe : Avocado and Lettuce Salad with...
Recipe : Sunflower Seed Pie
Recipe : Sunflower Biscuits

Golden Petals

The Heart that has Truly Loved ...

The heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turned when he rose!
~Thomas Moore

The Sunflower in Mythology

The name of the sunflower, Helianthus, is Greek and means, curiously enough, Sunflower

There was once a beautiful water-nymph called Clytie who fell in love with Helios, the God of the Sun. She was so much in love that she would sit on the grass and gaze up at the sun all day long but Helios, in his travels, looked over the world and never once did he see Clytie.

The other Gods took pity on her and turned her into a flower. Her legs became the sunflower's stem, her face became the flower and her golden hair the petals.

Today, in the form of a sunflower, Clytie still stares up at her love and this is why the sunflower's face always turns to follow the path of the sun.

Van Gogh's Sunflowers

A simple parable about the brevity of life

Vincent van Gogh painted these sunflowers after leaving his native Holland for the south of France with the dream of starting an artistic community. He began to paint sunflowers to decorate a bedroom for his friend Paul Gauguin.

The series of paintings was made possible by the innovations in manufactured pigments in the 19th Century. Without the vibrancy of the new colours, such as chrome yellow, Van Gogh may never have achieved the intensity of Sunflowers.

These most famous of all sunflowers in art hold at their heart a simple parable about the brevity of life; they are at varying stages in the life cycle, from withered and wilting to vibrant full bloom.

The Sunflowers of Van Gogh

Four Cut Sunflowers / Four sunflowers gone to seed

Roses and Sunflowers

Portrait of Augustine Roulin (La Berceuse)

Vase with Five Sunflowers

Vase with Three Sunflowers

The Shelf Life of a bottle of Sunflower Oil is 12 Months

Sunflower Oil

Healthy, natural sunflower oil is light in taste and appearance and supplies more Vitamin E than any other vegetable oil.

It's a combination of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats with low saturated fat levels. .

The versatility of this healthy oil is recognised by cooks of every level. I value this golden oil for its light taste, frying performance, health benefits and, of course, the taste..

When choosing sunflower oil, try and get the unrefined oil

The Spirals of Nature

We are accustomed to seeing the spiral in Nature.

A spiral is a curve which emanates from a central point, getting progressively farther away as it revolves around the point.

If you look closely at the centre of a sunflower you can see that the disk flowers grow in a pattern of two opposite spirals.

Recipe : Avocado and Lettuce Salad with Sunflower Seeds

Ingredients

1/2 cup olive oil
1 1/2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 1/2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1 Tablespoon mayonnaise
2 small heads iceberg lettuce torn into bite-size pieces
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
2 avocados peeled pitted and sliced

Instructions

Combine olive oil, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar and garlic in small bowl and whisk to blend. Whisk in mayonnaise. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.

Combine lettuce and sunflower seeds in bowl; toss with enough dressing to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Top with avocado slices. Pass remaining dressing separately.

Printable Version

Recipe : Sunflower Seed Pie

Ingredients

9 inch pie crust
3 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup sunflower seeds

Instructions

Heat oven to 375*. Beat eggs, sugar, salt, butter and syrup. Stir in sunflower seeds. Pour into pastry lined pie plate.

Bake until set, 40 to 50 minutes. Cool slightly. Serve warm or refrigerate.

Pie can be made in advanced and frozen. Store no longer than 1 month. Unwrap pie and thaw in refrigerator 20 minutes.

Printable Version

Recipe : Sunflower Biscuits

Ingredients

1/2 cup sunflower oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup sunflower seed

Printable Version

Fields of Golden Sunflowers

Sunflower Seed Huller and Oil Press

Organic Gardening, April 1979

Vegetable oils used to be one of those items you just HAD to buy. Now here's how to make your own.

The Sunflower Seed Huller and Oil Press By Jeff Cox -- from Organic Gardening, April 1979, Rodale Press

Sunflower Seed Huller and Oil Press: IN 2,500 SQUARE FEET, a family of four can grow each year enough sunflower seed to produce three gallons of homemade vegetable oil suitable for salads or cooking and 20 pounds of nutritious, dehulled seed -- with enough broken seeds left over to feed a winter's worth of birds.

Gazing up at the Sun

Golden Sunflower Ring

London Ring - Sunflower - 5

Amazon Price: $29.99 (as of 02/17/2012)

With a golden sparkle that even Apollo the Sun God would envy.

The Wild Sunflower

At early dawn, like soldiers in their places,
Rank upon rank the golden sunflowers stand;
Gazing toward the east with eager faces,
Waiting, until their god shall touch the land
To life and glory, longingly they wait,
Those voiceless watchers at the morning's gate.

Dawn's portals tremble silently apart;
Far to the east, across the dewy plain,
A glory kindles that in every heart
Finds answering warmth and kindles there again;
And rapture beams in every radiant face
Now softly glowing with supernal grace.

And all day long that silent worship lasts,
And as their god moves grandly down the west,
And every stem a lengthening shadow casts
Toward the east, ah, they love him best,
And watch till every lingering ray is gone,
Then slowly turn to greet another dawn.

~Albert Bigelow Paine~

More enchanting and edible flowers

Beauty and benefits of Violets: Apart from their ethereal beauty, sweet violets are also a popular culinary item
Beauty and benefits of Dandelions: Did you once tell the time by counting how many puffs it took to denude a dandelion?
Beauty and benefits of Calendula: The bright cheerful calendula, or marigold, is native to Mediterranean countries but now treasured as an ornamental plant throughout the world.

Thought for the Day

Keep your face to the sunshine and you can't see the shadow. That's what sunflowers do.

Please leave your comment for the Sunflower before she wilts ...

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jmsp206 Nov 8, 2011 @ 1:18 am | delete

I love sunflowers!

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Laura2222 Oct 26, 2011 @ 4:09 am | delete

I love sunflowers. They are so vibrant and beautiful. Your lens is great!

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RenaissanceWoman2010 Sep 19, 2011 @ 10:01 am | delete

I love how you approached your topic here. The sunflower is truly a masterpiece in every way. **Blessed**