Plant Food-Medicines: Perceptions, Traditional Uses and Health Benefits of Food Botanicals, Mushrooms, and Herbal Teas

The fields at the interface between food and medicine have received increasing attention in recent decades, both in historical and anthropological terms (food cultural heritage, Traditional Medicine) and also in bioscientific terms (nutraceutical, phytopharmacological, and ethnopharmacological sciences).

Better understanding the potential of plant ingredients and preparations of traditional foodways around the world, which are still partially based on local and neglected species and their complex culinary transformations, represents a crucial step for providing new insights into the field of healthy foods and "food–medicines".

We welcome explorations at the edge between the food and medical domains, such as research on health perceptions, uses, and potential benefits of neglected and underutilized species (NUS), local landraces, wild food plants (WFP), aromatic and seasoning botanicals, spices, mushrooms, plant snacks, fermented plant foods, and recreational herbal teas. A further important research domain is represented by "folk nutraceuticals", i.e., plants that have been traditionally consumed in order to improve general health or to prevent diseases, as well as plants for which food and medicinal uses co-exist, yet the used parts or methods of the preparation or consumption/administration do not overlap.    

In the past few years, local medicinal foods and herbs in different areas of the globe have been rediscovered, sometimes revitalized, and have provided and are providing important inspirations for promoting, designing, or even re-inventing healthy food products and gastronomies. Original research on traditional uses of these species and preparations, and on their impact in shaping holistic community wellbeing, germane public health/nutrition policies, and promoting sustainable food systems is particularly welcome.

Prof. Dr. Andrea Pieroni
Prof. Dr. Renata Sõukand
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.