Abstract: Recently, more and more consumers are desired to buy “naturally" meat products without the direct addition of chemical preservatives.Many plant extracts with strong free radical scavenging capacity and antibacterial activity are used as the preservative in prepared meat products.The bioactive substances, physiological activities and research progress of some plant extracts, such as grape polyphenols, tea polyphenols, oregano oil and allicin, as the preservatives in prepared meat products were reviewed in this paper.The development tendency and research directions in future of these nature preservatives were also prospected.