What’s So Great About Sunflower Seeds?

Do you avoid eating foods like sunflower seeds, pistachios and pomegranates because they’re just too damn much work? All that shelling and picking and potential for manicure mishaps? No? Well then, this is awkward.

I remember a friend in grade 7 bringing a huge bag of sunflower seeds for lunch every day and recess was punctuated with the regular, staccato sounds of her shell spitting.  She did have really good hair and skin though…hmmm. Fortunately for the lazy among us, modern society has mastered the pre-shelling, seeding and coring so that no healthy food is off limits.  And you should indeed include the once-lowly sunflower seed for a number of reasons: healthy fats, antioxidants and no more need to spit the shells willy-nilly in public (so gauche!).

Sunflower seeds, like all their nut and seed cousins, are packed with healthy unsaturated fats, especially the uber important polyunsaturates which protect against heart disease and type-2 diabetes. They’re high in phosphorous which can aid in the formation and maintenance of strong teeth and bones as children grow and they’re the “highest whole-food source of Vitamin E”, (source) which safeguards neurological function and protects the body on a cellular level from free radicals.

Another plus? They make sunflower seed butter! And since peanut butter is verboten anywhere within a 10-mile radius of a school, sunflower seed butter and jam sandwiches for the win!