Comfrey-Infused Oil

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed,
which [is] upon the face of all the earth,
and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed;
to you it shall be for meat.
Genesis 1:29

 

 

It did not start out this way. Throughout my college years, I was a KFC-eating {oh dear!}, fast food lover and did not know even how to cook – unless you count oven-baked french fries.

But shortly after becoming a mother to my first two daughters, I realized I was not only responsible for my health, but also my children’s health. Yes, I wish I had come to that realization a lot earlier in my life as a parent, but I knew it was time to change – to be responsible. My mom had raised our family with healthy eating habits, home cooked meals were always on the menu, we were rarely sick and we hardly ever had the need to visit the doctor.  I remember my mom buying milk fresh from a farm when I was little. She even used organic cleaning products before being organic was even marketed.

It was time to carry on such ways of life and health to my own {ever-growing} family.

I began to cook properly for my family. We ate only home cooked meals. I threw out toxic cleaners from the home and replaced them with natural alternatives. We tossed the microwave and baked breads from scratch. Then, when my 4th daughter, who was 2 years old at the time, lost 90% of her hair due to a lack of iron and was diagnosed anemic, we began to look at natural ways to treat and heal. From there, I was absolutely fascinated with natural medicine and herbal remedies – knowing God made food that was indeed medicine just made perfect sense!

Now as I learn and build up our home pantry pharmacy, I also want to teach my children how incredible God’s medicine is, to pass on any information I have learned. I think it is very important to have such knowledge and to be able to identify which plants you can use for healing, for eating, for health, for natural medicine. And most of these plants grow just outside your back door!

 

This week, Lavender, our 6th baby, burned the crease of her neck somehow.  It is not healing quickly so I wanted use my comfrey-infused oil to help the wound heal.

 

{Making an herb infused oil is very simple. Simply place your herbs in a glass jar & cover your herbs of choice with olive oil. You can either let it sit on your window sill for a few weeks to infuse the herbal properties into the oil. Or you may use a heating method (as described below). Once you oil is infused, you strain the oil. The oil may be used in many ways – topically, in food {if it is a herb to be digested}, in beauty products, and rubbed on the skin.)

Some information about comfrey: it is a natural healer of the skin, used specifically for minor burns. It is soothing and will help burns, wounds and even bruises to heal.  It is even credited to helping broken bones heal! It is rich with vitamins A, C and B12, which helps the skin heal faster and wounds to close quickly.  It will reduce swelling around a bruise and soothe eczema.  It is not to be ingested – please, only use it externally!

 

My helpers measured out the comfrey …

and did a strict quality control test …

Second hand assistant poured olive oil over the comfrey leaves  …

 The leaves and oil mixture where then placed in a double boiler, filled with boiling water.
Immersing the herbs with the oil, the concoction sat on the warm part of my stovetop for 4 hours.

After the hours had passed, it was time to strain the leaves from the oil.
It was poured over a very fine cheesecloth to strain the comfrey leaves.

Squeeze every last little drop into your jar…

Store in a glass jar, label it and place into your pantry.