Dear Colleagues,

Currently, consumers have become more aware of the need to maintain a healthy lifestyle and are demanding foods with more benefits in their composition. For this reason, the food industry has increased the development of functional foods and bioactive ingredients by incorporating probiotics, bioactive compounds, postbiotics, and parabiotics, representing a new category of foods for the improvement of biological responses. Bioactives are subject to physicochemical changes due to the processing, gastrointestinal digestion, and to the food matrix. Therefore, to achieve health benefits, researchers must investigate the functional, nutritional, technological, and organoleptic properties, thus guaranteeing the stability, bioaccessibility, and bioavailability of the added functional compounds through different strategies.

This Special Issue of Foods aims to collect original research articles and reviews to expand knowledge in the field of stability and functionality of probiotics, postbiotics, parabiotics, and plant bioactives for the development of functional foods and ingredients. The main topics of interest are:

• Encapsulation of bioactive compounds and probiotic bacteria;
• Control of the fermentation process and analysis before and after fermentation and during shelf life;
• Impact of processing and the food matrix on the stability of bioactives;
• Strategies for the extraction of plant bioactives, postbiotics, and parabiotics;
• In vitro bioactivity of plant bioactives, postbiotics, and parabiotics;
• Analytical approaches for the characterization of foods and ingredients that involve the use of bioactives, postbiotics, and parabiotics;
• Strategies for the long-term stabilization of functional foods and ingredients;
• In vitro and in vivo studies to evaluate the physiological effects of bioactives as well as the mechanisms involved;
• Antimicrobial and antiviral activities.

Prof. Dr. Maria Jose Frutos Fernandez
Dr. Letizia Bresciani
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• functional foods
• bacterial metabolism
• micro and nano encapsulation
• impact of vegetal food matrices
• gastrointestinal digestion
• bioaccessibility and bioavailability
• food processing and storage
• interactions with food components
• functional properties
• food quality and safety
• sources of bioactive compounds
• consumer acceptance/sensory attributes
• fermented foods