Help Get Milk Out of San Francisco School Meals 

Seed the Commons is a San Francisco grassroots organization that works to build local food resiliency through advocacy campaigns and community education. Our flagship campaign, #GetMilkOut, was launched September 30, 2017. It aims to get milk out of public school meals in San Francisco, as a starting point to diminish health disparities caused by pro-corporate policies coming from Washington, D.C. and Sacramento.

Every day, fluid cow’s milk is distributed to more than 500 000 children in the United States as part of their free or reduced-priced lunches. While the science increasingly points to milk as a source of disease, not health, federal requirements still make milk distribution a prerequisite for school meal funding. This policy prioritizes the bottom-line of the dairy industry over the health of the country’s low-income children, who depend on subsidized meals for adequate nutrition.

Milk has long been marketed as “Nature’s Perfect Food” and as a necessary source of calcium, but the truth is that there is no nutrient in milk that we can’t easily obtain from healthier foods. Milk is a source of liquid calories that increase the risk of obesity and diabetes, bovine hormones, and has been linked to increased risk of cancers of the reproductive system. Milk consumption is especially harmful to children of color, who are majority lactose-intolerant and who make up 89% of the student body of the San Francisco Unified School District. Learn more about how federal school milk requirements harm low-income children.

Seed the Commons is therefore campaigning the San Francisco Board of Education to take a stance against mandatory milk in school meals. Our campaign aims to get the San Francisco Board of Education to take a stance against Federal school meal policy; to inspire similar campaigns around the country and provide the impetus for change at the federal level; and to build broad awareness of the health impacts of milk consumption and the problematic nature of school milk policies.

This Campaign is proudly endorsed by:

Recent Updates

Recent Donors

Recent Pledges