Sunflower Oil Around the World: Notes from a Curious Kitchen

By Helen Thornwyn, food author, with Natura Harmony.

Some discoveries start in a lab. Mine started at a kitchen table, with a bottle of golden oil and a plate of sliced tomatoes. One taste, and I had a question I could not put down. Why does half the world cook with this oil, while Britain barely knows it exists?

So I did what a food writer does. I went looking. Through cookbooks, markets and borrowed family recipes, I followed one bottle around the world. This is what I found.

The sunflower oil half the world cooks with

Sunflower oil is one of the most used cooking oils on earth. It is pressed and poured from Spain to India, from Argentina to France. But its true home is the east of Europe. There, it is not a backup oil. It is the oil. The one on every table, in every larder, behind half the dishes on the stove.

And here is the part I love. Ukraine, where our own oil is pressed, is among the world’s top producers and exporters of sunflower oil. The sunflower is on their fields, in their art and on their flag’s colours. When you buy a bottle of Ukrainian sunflower oil, you are buying from the true home of the crop.

Two oils, one name

My next find explained the British blind spot. There are two oils under one name.

The one Britain knows is refined. It is pale, blank and made for the fryer. Fine at its job. Dull at the table.

The one the east knows is cold-pressed and unrefined. The seed is pressed slowly, with no heat and no chemicals. The oil keeps its deep gold colour, its seedy smell and its round, nutty taste. It is the difference between a photocopy and the painting.

How the world uses real sunflower oil

Everywhere I looked, the real oil was used the same way: cold, and with pride.

• Ukraine. Poured over tomato salads with raw onion and salt. Drizzled on boiled potatoes with dill. Used to dress sauerkraut, beans and warm buckwheat. Bread is dipped straight in it.
• The Caucasus. A splash finishes simple salads of cucumber, tomato and herbs. It is the quiet secret behind their flavour.
• Central Europe. Whisked into dressings for potato salads and pickled dishes, where its nutty note rounds off the sour edge.
• And beyond. Cooks blend it into dips, spoon it over grains, and even trail it over ice cream with a pinch of salt. Yes, really. Try it before you doubt it.

What this means for a British kitchen

Here is my conclusion, after all that reading and tasting. We have been keeping a world-class salad oil in the frying cupboard.

The fix is simple. Keep your refined oil for heat. Then buy one bottle of the cold-pressed kind for the table. Use it where you would use a good olive oil: green salads, warm potatoes, roast vegetables, fresh bread.

And if you want proof, try my little test. Make two small bowls of the same tomato salad. Dress one with your usual oil. Dress the other with this one. Taste them side by side. That salad converted half a continent. It will convert you.

Our cold-pressed sunflower oil is pressed in Ukraine from a single crop of dried seeds, unrefined, vegan, GMO-free and ISO 22000 certified. It is also the gentlest price in the range, which makes it the perfect first bottle. For the full story of the two oils, read our refined vs unrefined guide.

Be one with nature.