By Carina Magyar in Flowers — Jul 26, 2023

VIII: Safflower

The good and evil of safflower oil.

The bright flowers and prickly leaves of safflower. Photo via Wallpaper Flare.

Good morning. Today is octidi, the 8th of Thermidor, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate la carthame, yet another daisy that's great for making healthy cooking oil.

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Safflower is sometimes used as a (much) cheaper flavoring substitute for saffron. So that's how it got its name, right? The convergence of the two words actually seems to be either a coincidence or lying undiscovered in the depths of Arabic's prehistoric evolution. The word "saffron" comes from the Arabic word for the plant, az-za'faran, which also happens to be the name of a village in Egypt, though that's unlikely to be the source of the word as the village is too new (only a few thousand years old). "Safflower" means "yellow flower," with the "saff" part coming from the Arabic word for yellow, asfar. While it's possible that both flowers were named for the color yellow (even though saffrons are purple and their harvested stamens are red), there's no known tie between az-za'faran and asfar aside from some superficial similarities in sound.

Safflower is one of the oldest cultivated plants and from the start was mostly harvested for the oil that could be pressed from its seeds. This oil is nearly odorless and has turned out to be one of the healthier cooking oils, particularly for people with diabetes. While the natural pressed oil is categorized as perfectly safe by the FDA and recommended by many nutritionists for ameliorating (or at least not making worse) several dietary health conditions, there's another safflower oil product on shelves that's marketed for weightlifters and should be viewed with some side-eye.

VIII: Safflower

VII: Mugwort

IX: Blackberry

VII: Mugwort

IX: Blackberry

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