Sunflower Power

July 2011

Just follow the bees. They know where it's at.

In mid-summer, multiple species of bees can be found in abundance in the center of sunflowers, drawing from a seemingly endless supply of nectar. They drink, rest and even sleep there. When I see a bee doing its thing with a sunflower, I am reminded to bask in the simple things in life.

Native to the Americas, Helianthus annuus, the common sunflower, with its bright yellow rays and reddish-brown disk center, blooms all summer long in gardens, along roadsides, around birdfeeders, and in prairies and other open spaces. Cultivated varieties can reach heights of 20 feet, although they average between 3 and 6. It needs full sun to bloom, in tune with the meaning of its genus and Greek name: helios = sun and anthos = flower.

As simple as the flower looks, it is a member of a most evolved and the largest family of flowering plants in North America, the Asteraceae. What looks like one flower is really hundreds, sometimes thousands of flowers, all packed efficiently in a spiral formation, following the Fibonnaci sequence, with each floret able to ripen into a seed. Now that is some reproductive genius!

Sunflowers are a beautiful example of letting food be your medicine. The seeds are the most nourishing part of the plant, exceptionally high in Vitamins E and B1. Eat them raw, soaked, roasted or ground for subtle differences in the flavor. With 27 grams of protein to every one cup of seeds, it's no wonder this is the flower on the Vegan Society banner. High in magnesium, the counter balance to calcium, and selenium, a trace mineral that aids in cancer prevention, sunflowers pump out the volume in disease prevention.

You can sprinkle the ray flowers on salads, make the seeds into a nutritious butter spread, sprout the seeds for delicious greens, ground them into flour or grind the husk into a coffee-like drink. Apparently, the young flower buds can be steamed and eaten like artichokes (another Asteraceae family member). The pressed oil is used for baking, margarine, salad dressings, and soap making. Unrefined high-oleic sunflower oil can withstand cooking heat up to 320°F and still hold the integrity of its molecular structure. Native Americans used the oil for their hair and also mixed it with natural dyes to make paint.

The leaf of the sunflower has been used as a tobacco substitute. Both the leaf and flower have small quantities of insecticidal properties and were commonly used during pioneer times as a malaria preventative. The seeds work like quinine for dispelling intermittent fevers and James Duke writes in The Green Pharmacy that the seeds also have a chemical called phenylalanine that reduces pain by disturbing the chemicals that give us pain perception. He also addresses SAM, another chemical in the seeds, that relieves pain and has anti-inflammatory properties that help arthritis. The sunflower seeds have an affinity for throat and lung ailments- sore throat, cough, tonsillitis, bronchitis, tuberculosis and asthma.

Anastasia, the mesmerizing Russian boreal-forest wild woman who is documented in The Ringing Cedars of Russia series, says every garden should have at least one sunflower, and I think the birds and bees would agree. Magically, the sunflower is said to protect our soul and attract joy and happiness. The plants have been use to extract heavy metals such as uranium and lead from the soil, dry up excessive moisture around home foundations, as a yellow dye, lifebelts (the pith), animal fodder and for fiber.



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