Sunflower

Sunflower is the main oilseed crop in Ukraine. Seeds of highly modern varieties contain 50-55% of oil (on dry weight of seeds), and 16% of protein, and the core contains 65-67% of oil and 22-24% o9f protein. Sunflower oil belongs to the group of semi-drying, it has the highest taste and quality advantages than other vegetable fats in nutrition and digestion. The particular value of sunflower oil as the food product is due to its high content of unsaturated fatty acids (90%), mainly - linoleic (55-60%) and oleic acid (30-35%). Biologically useful linoleic acid (in the new varieties of its content reaches 75-80%) normalizes cholesterol metabolism, which has a positive effect on human health. The sunflower oil contains formulated phosphatides, vitamins A, D, E, K, and other very valuable food components for humans.

The sunflower seeds have a lot of magnesium, that is required for normal functioning of the cardiovascular system.

After the processing of oil seeds prepared meal or cake are received, which are a valuable concentrated feed with a protein content of 35-36%. The composition of the protein contains all the essential amino acids. The 100 kg of oil cake contain 109 fodder units. Sunflower protein has not only coarse, but also nutritional value and is used for the manufacturing of food products. Sunflower has bigger content of the valuable amino acid methionine, which  is involved in fat metabolism, than peanut, walnut, hazelnut.

When growing sunflower as a fodder, the green sunflower vegetative mass (300-600 kg /ha) is fed to cattle and silaged.

Sunflower is a valuable honey plant. Among field crops sunflower is one of the most generous. 1,200 kg of oil, 800 kg of oil cake (300 kg protein), 500 kg of husk (70 kg of yeast), 1500 kg baskets (equivalent to hay), 35-40 kg of honey, etc. can be obtained from 1 ha for seed yield of 25 t / ha.

Over the past 30 years, consumption of vegetable fats per capita has doubled. In the countries of the European Union (EU) up to 41 kg of oil per person is used, while the world average is 15.7 kg per person.

Oil and fat branch is the largest exporter in the food industry. Ukrainian oil is exported to 30 countries.