A couple of books you might find interesting and valuable - Steven Foster's "Herbal Renaissance" and "Herbs of Choice" by Varro Tyler are modern appraisals of herbal medicine that take into account research into the effectiveness and safety of herbs.

This thread mentions several good online sources for evaluating botanical remedies. Some of these sources discuss findings on foods/supplements which have been promoted as preventing disease (including lycopene (found in tomatoes), vitamin E, pomegranate juice etc.), some of which are promising and some which haven't lived up to their initial billing.

Michael Moore's herbal site has a lot of good informaiton.

http://www.swsbm.com/homepage/

http://medherb.com/MATMED.HTM

Thanks guys i'll check those out.

also check out David Winston's site, www.herbalist-alchemist.com The American Herblists Guild Journal also gives good reading. Herbs for Health is a terrific magazine geared toward edibles for health. The Herb Pharm has some very interesting lectures to download. All these places are very scientifically based, yet with a strong sense of honoring herbal tradition.