The bioactive compounds in foods have been the topic of many papers over the past 20 years and are among those that have received a higher citation in agriculture and food science journals. With the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a Symposium on Food Bioactives was held during the 2011 American Chemical Society meeting in Denver, CO. The symposium was organized as an overview of the state of the art in knowledge of food bioactives and the perspectives and trends for the 21st century.