Welcome. In this course, you will learn how beef gets from the farm to your table. Check out the instructor guide in the material tab.
Start with the Beef on the Farm section and learn how farmers care for their cattle, including where they live, what they eat and the standards that farmers must follow to keep their cattle healthy. Then follow beef from the farm to the grocery store to find out about beef grading and the different kinds of cuts you can buy in the Beef at the Grocery Store section. Finally, learn why beef is a healthy choice and cook along as we show you how to use a meat thermometer and how to tenderize economical cuts of meat in the Beef in Your Kitchen section.
Course content & objectives
In this course, you will learn about beef. There are three sections:
Beef on the Farm – Learn how farmers care for their cattle, including where they live, what they eat and the standards that farmers must follow to keep their cattle healthy.
Beef in the Grocery Store – Follow beef from the farm to the grocery store to find out about beef grading and the different kinds of cuts you can buy.
Beef in Your Kitchen – Learn why beef is a healthy choice and cook along to find out how to use a meat thermometer and how to tenderize economical cuts of meat.
Course Delivery
Using the content on the Canadian Food Focus website, the material can be shared with students through a variety of methods, including:
- Lecture-style presentations by the instructor
- Student group presentations on each of the topic areas in the course
- Individual students selecting a specific topic to write about using information provided on the website and other resources
- Self-guided study with students completing quizzes at the end of each topic
- Team competitions at the end of each course to see which team gets the most quiz answers correct
Suggested Activities
- Invite a farmer or rancher to talk with your class about raising cattle. Topics could include grasslands management, cow-calf operations, feedlots, selecting rations for beef cattle, disease prevention, and hormone and antibiotic use in cattle. You could also organize a field trip to a cattle ranch to see cattle grazing in the pasture or to a feedlot to see how beef cattle are finished before being sold for processing.
- Take a field trip to a meat processing facility or a butcher shop to learn about cuts of beef and how it is prepared for sale to the consumer. Ask about meat grading, how the meat is kept fresh and about inspection processes to ensure the meat is safe for consumption.
- As a group, prepare Cheeseburger Roll-Ups, following the recipe in the Beef in Your Kitchen section. Discuss some of the variations that could be made to the recipe. What other ingredients could you add or what substitutions could you make? Ask students to bring other ground beef recipes to share and discuss how each recipe is prepared. Have a vote and decide which is the group favourite – then prepare it too. Enjoy!