Comfrey Your Mind...

Follow the White Rabbit Neo.

One of the more uplifting social changes I have noticed since Covid has been a desire by a larger part of the population to leave behind the processed garbage that lines the shelves of grocery stores and to return to more basic and natural sources when it comes to food and medicine. I meet new people who made the conscious decision to live differently all the time. The growth in that viewpoint is likely thanks to the propaganda train going full speed on the Covid vaccine rails when enough people who took it experienced, or directly knew someone who did, the side effects of a social experime… I mean untested medicine. I believe the semi-forced removal of our bodily freedoms started a trend within people to look further afield. To ask themselves what else exists in the world that might be a healthier alternative to what has been used in the past several decades. My wife and I agreed during the height of Covid when her job told her to get the jab or leave; that then was the time to encompass our small family and live our lives for what they are instead of pursuing a life of chasing the money: our lives.

Full disclaimer: I love Velveeta. I know it has to be lining my intestines and destroying me, but it doesn’t make it untrue, it just means it's bad for me.

Mushroom powder is one alternative medicine that seems to have skyrocketed in awareness within the past couple of years, alongside Colloidal Silver as a catchall treatment for ailments, and the realization that animal fats for cooking have more health benefits than manufactured cooking oils or seed oils. I love seeing a more natural direction in terms of caring for oneself rather than relying on a corrupt and profit-driven industry like Big Pharm, which is why I have decided to write this post about a plant that has a two thousand-year history of tried and true healing properties, is fodder for animals, is a fertilizer for plants, and a tap root to lock in soil and bring up valuable nutrients that are trapped meters deep in the soil. By the end of this post, you will see why this one plant could single-handedly remove billions of dollars out of several industries, and thus why you have probably never heard of the wonderful plant known as comfrey. 

Big shout out to all our ancestors who performed the trial and error of figuring out medicinal plants. I mean, can you imagine the lottery system for ancient civilizations experimenting with different plants and animal parts? “Boro, you take the papaya fruit and do a bunch of different things to it and see what helps. Tetokai, you take that shiny ivy and see what happens when you do a bunch of things to it”.

Tetokai is the ancestor of Hugh Jackman apparently.

The memory of Tetokai was lost to history, but his saying of “leaves of three, let it be” has thankfully survived throughout the eons.

I think about our predecessors frequently, and their knowledge of plants is one of the things I find most impressive. Comfrey is a great example because there is so much history surrounding it. The plant was first mentioned in roughly 400 BC by Greek historian Herodotus who noted its capacity to stop severe bleeding; four hundred years later Greek physician Pedanius wrote that it heals wounds, repaired broken bones, and cured lung and stomach problems. It wasn’t just the Greeks who utilized the wonderful herb, the Romans were also heavily invested in using and learning about it, specifically Pliny the Elder. Pliny penned 15 books, some of which were about medicinal plants, and wrote about the different ways in which he would prepare the comfrey for consumption, both internal and external. You can read his original words about how the plant would “solder pieces of meat together with which it is boiled”, which led me to wonder if it does do that, could I weld a filet mignon to a ribeye and make something that the world has never seen before? Could the age of the Ribgnon be upon us?

The history of comfrey doesn’t stop with meat welding in ancient Rome though, it continually makes appearances throughout history with writings found in the early Renaissance, during the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and into the modern era; all of them touting the almost miraculous healing properties of the plant, which I listed out below:

• Known for mending broken bones much quicker than without.

• Known for stopping bleeding, both internal and external

• It will mend together broken skin

• Used for ulcers and intestinal tract inflammation

• Heals mucous membranes

• Can be applied topically for tendonitis, arthritis, gout, joint and back pain.

Okay calm down, calm down. Yes, it is an extremely incredible plant. Yes, it grows in most environments. No, it does not cause anywhere close to the number of side effects that manufactured medicine does; and yet, as with anything, there are a few precautions to take when using comfrey, especially ingesting it.

Comfrey contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which when consumed can cause sinusoidal obstruction syndrome and thereby severe liver injury. Since I am not a doctor I always like to consider both sides of the table, so I looked around on the internet and found arguments on both sides of the board. The NIH gives it a likelihood score of C which signifies that there is evidence found likely linking cases of liver failure to oral consumption of comfrey, either in pill form or tea.

On the other side is Monica Wilde, an herbalist with a master's from UCLAN, who speaks about the tests that have been done on rats and how many flaws there are with that manner of thought and the tests they performed. I highly encourage you to read her post about the edibility of comfrey and form your own conclusions. If you don’t read it then just know that the gist of the post is to not over consume comfrey when you do use it, some strains of comfrey carry more PAs than others, and don’t use it every single day of your life. Livers are overrated in my opinion (I think they are jealous of the heart), but if you aren’t going to use the plant for its well-known medicinal properties, then you can always use it for its fertilizing and mulching capacities!

Comfrey is the plant version of the type of young man I want my daughters to bring home someday in the very far future: multifaceted and good in a garden. Comfrey has an NPK ratio of 1.80-0.50-5.30 and when cut and dropped around the garden it will break down over the course of a couple of weeks into an absolutely wonderful topside fertilizer. One can also cut several plants down and stuff a five-gallon bucket full, fill it up to the top with water, weigh down the vegetation with brick or rock, and with occasional stirring over several weeks a wonderful concentrated liquid fertilizer is born that can be mixed in a 1:10 ratio of tea to water and poured all over your garden. It won’t smell great and if you are getting ready to pick and eat the veggies off the plant I wouldn’t pour it directly onto them; not because it is dangerous, but because it likely tastes much like it smells.

Quit swooning…because there is more behind door number three! This tall glass of water also has a root system that the NBA would like to talk to. With roots regularly descending into the soil up to 10 feet deep and in a three-foot radius, comfrey is one of the better plants to put on a hillside or wherever you want to lock your topsoil to your deep earth. It also taps into the nutrients that the vast majority of plants do not have access to due to how deep in the ground it will send its roots. The nutrients it pulls up from the depths of the earth also imbue it with a higher protein ratio than Alfalfa and also include calcium, B12, sulfur, and other minerals that make it a great fodder for animals. I have seen how crazy the turkeys go for the leaves and 100% believe that when I grow enough plants I will be able to feed most of my animals a mix of 50/50 comfrey and organic feed from Modesto Milling.

Alright, go ahead and recommence swooning, because it is a truly incredible herb! I have known about the gardening perks of this plant for the better part of half a decade, but only after researching the medicinal side of this post have I learned about how truly rich its history is. Thousands of years of use by our ancestors is personally a more convincing recommendation about this plant than any amount of modern, rote-taught, profit-driven dribble that the medicine industry might provide. The world is full of ancient knowledge that remains untainted by profit driven potential, all you have to do is follow the white rabbit.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!