USAGE:

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Traditionally, the crop was grown for its seeds, and used for coloring and flavoring foods, in medicines, and making red (carthamin) and yellow dyes, especially before cheaper aniline dyes became available.

Safflower seed oil is flavorless and colorless, and nutritionally similar to sunflower oil. It is used mainly in cosmetics and as a cooking oil, in salad dressing, and for the production of margarine. INCI nomenclature is Carthamus tinctorius.

There are two types of safflower that produce different kinds of oil: one high in monounsaturated fatty acid (oleic acid) and the other high in polyunsaturated fatty acid (linoleic acid). Currently the predominant edible oil market is for the former, which is lower in saturated fats than olive oil. The latter is used in painting in the place oflinseed oil, particularly with white paints, as it does not have the yellow tint which linseed oil possesses.

One human study compared high-linoleic safflower oil with conjugated linoleic acid, showing that body fat decreased and adiponectin levels increased in obese women consuming safflower oil.[6]

In one study where high-linoleic safflower oil replaced animal fats in the diets of patients with heart disease, the group receiving extra safflower oil in place of animal fats had a significantly higher risk of death from all causes, including cardiovascular diseases.[7] In the same study, a meta-analysis of linoleic acid used in intervention clinical trials showed no evidence of cardiovascular benefit.

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