Significance

• Sunflower oil is useful in cooking thanks to its light color and taste and its low level of saturated fats.
  
  

Expert Insight

• Sunflower oil is a good source for vitamin E. One tbsp. has 40.6 percent of the recommended daily allowance, more than corn, olive or soybean oil.
  
  

History

• The amount of sunflower oil produced in the United States began to rise in the 1960s.
  
  

Size

• Although sunflowers are grown for snack foods, birdseed and livestock feed, the largest market for sunflowers nationally and internationally is oil.
  
  

Fun Fact

• According to Penn State University's Medieval Technology and American History project, evidence of experiments making sunflower oil in oil mills -- and using it as a salad dressing -- exists as early as 1768.