Lipids are a major component of food and important structural and functional constituents of cells in biological systems. As a class, lipids contribute many desirable qualities to foods, including attributes of texture, structure, mouthfeel, flavour, and colour. Oxidation is one of the most important processes occurring in food systems. It affects many interactions among food constituents, leading to both desirable and undesirable products. Food lipids are foods components that are very susceptible to oxidation processes, due to their chemical instability; therefore, oxidation reactions are one of the major sources of deterioration that occurs during manufacturing, storage, distribution, and final preparation of foods. These oxidative processes in foods cause food quality deterioration, leading to the characteristic oxidative fragments, some of which are volatile and are perceived as the off-flavours of rancidity and are the cause of unpalatability. In addition to unpalatability, rancidity may give rise to toxic levels of certain compounds like aldehydes, hydroperoxides, epoxides, and cholesterol oxidation products. As it is well known, lipid oxidation has detrimental effects on both food quality and human health, and then efforts must be made to minimize oxidation and improve oxidative stability of lipid products.

Antioxidant strategy has been successfully employed in the food industry for quality preservation of the food products and in the medicinal industry for risk reduction of numerous oxidative stress-mediated diseases. Use of antioxidants as important factors in reducing the risk of chronic diseases and its economical aspects is much discussed in the scientific world. The need for search of natural antioxidant, commonly perceived as safe, is evaluated by international scientific research; in fact nowadays, the appeal in application of natural antioxidants as foods additives is raised because of their potential health benefits. This is of special importance when plant extracts rich in antioxidant components are applied as foods stabilizer. Endogenous plant antioxidants are capable of inhibiting lipid peroxidation in foods and offer protection against oxidative damage to membrane functions in biological systems. Lipid peroxidation in vivo and dietary lipid oxidation products have been proved to be the primary cause of many diseases, that is, atherosclerosis cancer to name the most important and aging process.

From this point of view the prevention of lipid oxidation by means of the addition of natural antioxidants to foods is increasingly recognized as preventive therapy. For this reason terms like functional foods, designer foods, therapeutic foods, nutraceuticals, and the like are widely used in food industry and human nutrition.

Authors are invited to submit unpublished original contributions as well as review articles for consideration in this special issue.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Development, validation, and application of novel analytical methods for lipid analysis
• Structural elucidation of new lipid molecules from foods and food by-products
• Influence of food processing on the stability of lipids
• Lipid degradation: chemistry and health aspects
• Novel functional foods based on the addition of nonpolar antioxidants
• Natural antioxidants for lipid preservation in foods
• Lipids and nutraceutical aspects
• Antioxidant food additives and health benefits
• Chemical stability and bioavailability of lipids
• Physicochemical change and heat stability of fats
• Antimicrobial effect of lipids in food