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actually originated in North America.
The Russians adopted it. They turned this native American plant into one of the world's great sources of cooking oil.
The Russian Orthodox Church had a list of foods that you weren't supposed to eat during Lent.
That included butter and lard.
"But it just happened that sunflower was such a new crop that it was not on the prohibited list," he says. "And when they discovered that they could use sunflower, it just blossomed."
By the 1800s, sunflowers covered huge fields in Russia and Ukraine.
They created varieties with almost 50 percent more oil in their seeds.
But in the U.S., sunflower oil couldn't compete with oil from corn and soybeans, because those oils are cheaper.
Olive oil was in. Transfats were on their way out. .
The sunflower may be going where no oil seed has gone before. Right now, in the greenhouses of the USDA's sunflower research center in Fargo, Brent Hulke is growing sunflowers with yet another genetic trait. These plants may eventually produce oil that's lower in saturated fat than any other vegetable oil.
In his greenhouse, Brent Hulke is breeding sunflowers that produce oil that's dramatically lower in saturated fat.
The genes for these low levels of saturated fat came from sunflowers that were collected in Hungary and Egypt.
Each seed is a package of genes that Seiler wants to preserve. Because those genes, he says, are like nuggets of gold. Their true value is still waiting to be discovered."
