Abstract: Natural polyphenols are plant metabolites usually with strong antioxidant properties, based on the analysis of the literature of natural polyphenols related to food, this paper discussed the hot spots and future research directions of food and natural polyphenols. CiteSpace V5.8.R3, VOSviewer 1.6.15, Note Express 3.6.0.9178 were used to analyze the distribution characteristics of research articles on food-related natural polyphenols in CNKI and PubMed database. The results showed that the number of articles on food and natural polyphenols grows continuely. Chinese literature accounts for 73.18% in the field of light industry/handicraft. The most published journals are Science and Technology of Food Industry (China) and Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (USA). China is the leading country in terms of the number of published articles. The main research institutions are Southwest University (China) and the Indian Institute of Technology (India). The number of articles published by Li Jianrong and Shela Goeringstein is relatively high. The citation frequency of a single article in Chinese is the highest 173 times, and that in English is the highest 2269 times. The high-frequency keyword emergence indicated that the hot spots in the future would focus on the process optimization and in vitro digestion of polyphenol extraction and purification, as well as plant extraction. This paper can provide a data reference for scholars who are engaged in the study on food-related natural polyphenols.