For many centuries, people have been using heat treatment for cooking and storing of food, but with increasing of people’s awareness about the harmful effects of heat on food nutritional compounds, tendency to use natural foods and beverages has been increased. To prevent diseases caused by consumption of contaminated foods, food safety control systems have been created. Today in food industry, in addition to the severe thermal processes, chemical preservatives are used to prevent the growth of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms. The use of chemical preservatives have unpleasant consequences, such as cancer and severe poisoning for human being. Regarding the antimicrobial and antioxidant activity of herbs they are valuable alternative to chemical preservatives. Therefore, in addition to a mild thermal process, one or more lateral processes can be used to ensure the reliability of the mild heat process. Fermentation and use of plants medicinal essences are examples of these lateral processes. Doogh is a traditional fermented beverage which is consumed for hundreds of years. Application of natural preservatives such as plants essences in this beverage in addition to improving the flavor and nutritional properties of the product leads to severe reduction in thermal process. In this study, the essential oil of four native herbs Satureja hotensis L . , Rosemarinus officinalis L. , Anethum geraveolens L. and Ziziphora tenuior L. were used to prevent the growth of E. coli 0:157 and S. aureus in this product . Initially, plant oils were extracted using Clevenger apparatus and then to identify their active components, they were injected into the GC-MASS device. Results showed that gamma-terpinene in essence of Satureja, Bicyclo- (3.1.1) heptane in rosemary essence, Alpha-phelandrene in essence of Anethum and 3-methyl-4- isopropyl-phenol in Ziziphora tenuior essence are the dominant compounds. The DPPH method was used to determine the antioxidant properties of the extracted essence, and oil extract of Satureja with 89.97 percent (p 0.05) had the highest level of antioxidant activity. To confirm the antimicrobial properties of the extracts, minimum inhibitory concentration method and disk diffusion method were used against two main food poisoning microbes, E. coli 0:157 and Staphylococcus aureus . Essence oil of Satureja showed the highest germicidal activity (p 0.05) using the first said method amongst all the essences tested. Minimum inhibitory concentration using inoculation of pathogenic microbes into the Doogh as much as 10 7 cfu/ml and adding the essence oils in concentration of 0.15-0.65 µl/ml were determined. The Staphylococcus aureus bacterium showed an average decrease of 6 logarithmic cycles, and the Escherichia 0:157 bacterium showed an average decrease of 4 logarithmic cycles in microbial population during 8 weeks of storage (p 0.05). It could be said that the tested essences are promises compounds to increase the shelf life of doogh. Keywords : Minimum inhibitory concentrations, Doogh, Ziziphora, Rosemary, Anethum, Savory