Enormous increase in the World's population has led to the shortage of food and changes in lifestyle that leads to various types lifestyle diseases throughout the world. Awareness on fat-less food among urban consumers stimulated the food processing companies to come up with several fat less foods which had undergone severe processing techniques. The changes that are undergone by the foods during processing techniques have not been explored yet. On the other side, natural food products are receiving much attention due to their healthy nature and not having unseen side effects. Growing trends in food processing sector and application of synthetic additives have made the consumers to focus on natural food products due to their safe nature, rich source of valuable bioactive compounds of medicinal importance. The above reasons evoked us to explore the reasons and solutions for the above mentioned issues in the form of an edited book titled "Natural Products in Food: Prospects and Applications". The book contains twenty four chapters focusing on three main themes namely: (1) Medicinal foods, (2) Natural food additives, ingredients and flavoringsand, (3) Food processing and preservationand covers an amazing range of topics from natural food additives, ingredients and flavorings, medicinal foods, food processing and preservation, the application of natural hydrocolloids as well as natural aroma chemicals and flavourings from biotechnology and green chemistry, etc. contributed by eminent subject experts, academicians, researchers and scientists from India and abroad. This book would cater to the need of the graduate and post graduate students pursuing their study in any branch of food sciences and technology, researchers and scientists working in the laboratories and industries involved in the study and research in the field of food sciences and allied researches. With distinguished editors and expert team of international contributors, "Natural products in food: Prospects and Applications" is an invaluable reference tool for all those involved in the development, production and preservation of foods with natural additives and ingredients.

By Jayanta Kumar Patra and Shakti Kanta Rath