Food safety, as it relates to the maintenance of both animal and human health and welfare, now depends to a large extent upon the inclusion of feed components deemed 'consumer-safe'. In Europe, the growing unwillingness to rely upon standard solutions involving antibiotic or antimicrobial agents has given rise to several alternative strategies, such as that based on natural plant extracts and their intrinsic active principles. Due in part to today's technological advances, new state-of-the-art scientific methods are being used to re-examine these age-old substances, especially as it relates to their potential benefits and limits as valid alternatives for the future. Like their antibiotic predecessors, in the final analysis modern strategies will most likely not be based on one single answer, but on a combined solution of different types of products with well-described actions whose synergism yields benefits without threat of toxicity, end-product residues and microbial resistance.