Mark Bittman on food and all things related.

AN election that saw great strides for women, gay men and lesbians and even pot smokers left the nascent food movement scratching its collective head. We’re going to see marijuana legalized before we see a simple change in food labeling that’s favored by more than 90 percent of Americans? Or a tax on soda, a likely contributor to the obesity problem?

Possibly.

Proposition 37, which would have required packagers to label foods containing genetically modified organisms (G.M.O.’s) as such, was on the ballot in California. As recently as two months ago, the vote for labeling appeared to be a shoo-in. But then the opposition spent nearly a million dollars a day — a total of $46 million, or about five times as much as the measure’s backers — not so much chipping away at the lead but demolishing it.

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Yes, there were misrepresentations, deceit and outright lies. Yes, there were egregious missteps on the part of California Right to Know, the organization leading the pro-labeling effort. But none of that would have mattered had the money been roughly equivalent.

“This wasn’t an election so much as a sale,” said Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Farm and chairman of Just Label It! a national G.M.O. labeling campaign. He’s right, and — as far as I can tell — the only big race in which the loser outspent the winner by a factor of five was in Connecticut, where Representative Chris Murphy managed to overcome a $50 million spending spree by the wrestling magnate Linda McMahon. (It seems that the more voters saw of McMahon, who saturated the airwaves, the less they liked her.)

Money played an equally big role in defeating proposed soda taxes in two small cities, each with about 100,000 people: El Monte, east of Los Angeles, and Richmond, north of Berkeley. Advocates for both were optimistic a month ago, but that was before the anti-tax forces led by beverage companies began throwing money around, spending a combined $3.5 million in both cities. Compare that to the pro-tax forces’ total spending: $50,000 in Richmond and about $57,000 in El Monte. In other words, they were outspent by roughly 33 times.

In the three votes, the issue is either transparency — the right to know how the food we eat is produced — or, let’s say, wholesomeness: does the food we’re eating enhance health or destroy it?

G.M.O. labeling is by far the thornier issue. Labeling is important not so much because G.M.O.’s are ”bad” — they have not introduced harmful ingredients into the food chain, and those who argue that they have are taking a position that is difficult to defend — but because once we know what’s in food we can better influence how it is produced.

Sensibly or not, many consumers are predisposed against G.M.O.’s; but G.M.O.’s are not exactly evil. A better choice might be a broader discussion about animal welfare. After all, Americans are also predisposed to treat animals fairly, and it could be that a struggle for transparency in livestock production would be more successful: mistreatment of animals is easy to prove, as are the many, many downsides of industrial livestock production. Of course we love our meat, and we don’t love our G.M.O.’s. And this is an argument that could go on forever.

The soda issue is simpler. As I’ve written before, added sugar is the tobacco of the 21st century, and we’re just waiting for smoking-gun research that demonstrates that excessive intake of sugar is addictive and leads to obesity, diabetes and more. (Some will argue that this research exists, but ultimately that’s a legal question. When a healthy person drinks 10 sodas a day and develops Type 2 diabetes, sues Pepsi and wins, and that victory stands up in a higher court, the research will be validated.) In the meantime, I can’t think of a better way of reducing sugar consumption than a tax. It has worked, at least to some extent, for tobacco and it will likely work for soda. (It would also raise money to promote health.)

A month ago, I had high hopes for all three votes, so these losses were disheartening. But there are positives too. The issues were showcased, awareness increased markedly, Big Food had to spend a bunch of money, and four million Californians voted to label foods containing G.M.O.’s. A quarter of those who voted in El Monte and a third of those who voted in Richmond would voluntarily impose new taxes on themselves to protect their children and themselves from sugar-sweetened beverages. I find that downright encouraging.

Just the specter of a soda tax brought millions to a Bay Area city, and much of that money was spent hiring unemployed young people and teaching them the skills of door-to-door canvassing. “It was the best jobs program Richmond ever had,” Michael Pollan told me.

Pollan, writing in The Times Magazine last month, suggested that food processors will play Whac-A-Mole as long as their money holds out, spending to defeat local attempts to curb their dominance. “And the game is getting more and more expensive for them,” says Pollan. “That’s the real soda tax.”

Thus Jeff Ritterman, one of the leaders of the Richmond effort, is talking about a “14 in ’14” movement, in which he envisions 14 cities voting simultaneously on soda taxes two years from now in an effort to dilute the resources of the anti-tax forces. And, as many supporters (and I) believe, once a soda tax is established in one city, its benefits will become evident and it will spread.

Money, lies and mistakes crushed the forward-thinking votes in California, but these are battles lost in a war that will be won. The notions that we need to know what’s in our food and that food should not be harmful have not been defeated. It’s a question of finding the right strategy.