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seeds which yield the world's second most important source of edible oil.
Sunflower oil is used for cooking, margarine, salad dressings, lubrication,
soaps, and illumination. A semi-drying oil, it is used with linseed and
other drying oils in paints and varnishes. Decorticated press-cake is used
as a high protein food for livestock. Kernels eaten by humans raw, roasted
and salted, or made into flour. Poultry and cage
Medicinally, seeds are diuretic, expectorant, and used for colds, coughs, throat, and lung ailments. According to Hartwell (1967–1971), the flowers and seeds are used in folk remedies for cancer in Venezuela, often incorporated in white wine. Reported to be anodyne, antiseptic, aphrodisiac,
bactericidal, deobstruent, diuretic, emollient, expectorant, insecticidal,
malaria preventative, sunflower is a folk remedy for aftosa, blindness,
bronchiectasis, bronchitis, carbuncles, catarrh, cold, colic, cough,
diarrhea, dysentery, dysuria, epistaxis, eyes, fever, flu, fractures,
inflammations, laryngitis, lungs, malaria, menorrhagia, pleuritis,
rheumatism, scorpion stings, snakebite, splenitis, urogenital ailments,
whitlow, and wounds (Duke and Wain, 1981).
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birds
are fond of raw kernels. Flowers yield a yellow dye. Plants used for fodder,
silage and green-manure crop. Hulls provide filler in livestock feeds and
bedding.
