It is also used as a green vegetable, some cooking it in two waters and serving it with chives. Only small and medium leaves are used. They may be boiled or steamed for 2 minutes, and then eaten in salads or with a sauce. It is said to be antiinflammatory. The mucilage is thought to soften the skin when used in baths.
Some organic gardeners recommend a mixture of comfrey and kudzu leaves for composting.
Folk Medicine Plant contains allantoin, used in some face creams, or to cure scours in pigs and calves, or give a bloom to horses. For humans, it is reported to be good for asthma, whooping cough, stomach and duodenal ulcers and lung ailments. The slimie substance of the roote made in a posset of ale and given to drink against the pain in the backe gotten by any violent motion such as wrastling or overmuch use of women, doth in foure or five days perfectly cure the same, although involuntarie flowing of seed in men be gotten thereby. Comfrey is said to be alterative, astringent, demulcent, emollient, expectorant, hemostat, nutritive, and vulnerary. The root decoction is used as a mouthwash or gargle for asthma, bleeding gums, hoarseness, sore throat and stomatitis.