Taught by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Ethical Meat: Sourcing & Cooking

£45
Level: Peer






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Level: Peer

Course overview

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and River Cottage's Executive Chef Gelf Alderson combine to show you how to source sustainable and ethical meat and cook all types of meat cuts - to make the most of every piece of meat you eat.

Having written The River Cottage Meat Book (one of the most important tomes on the ethics of rearing, sourcing, cooking and eating meat), Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall takes the bull by the horns once again in this thoughtful course on animal protein and its role in modern diets.

Having moved to a mostly plant-based diet himself, he still eats meat – but most of his consumption comes from animals he rears himself, or those reared locally by farms that have the highest animal welfare and sustainability standards.

This course extols the virtue of eating less and better meat, both for the sake of our health and also for the planet. Hugh takes you through the various meat choices in the mainstream market and leads you towards the higher welfare end of the market through a well-informed critique of the devastating effects of modern factory farming and British supermarket practices.

By the end of this course you’ll gain new insight into how you can source the best possible meat, from local farms and make the most of every morsel.

You will get a further perspective from one of Hugh’s favourite local butchers and also River Cottage’s neighbouring farm and organic meat supplier, Harry Boglione.

The principles of ethical meat follow through from sourcing into the kitchen, and Executive Chef Gelf Alderson will take you step-by-step through recipes that will help you make the most of your meat, helping you to understand the “nose to tail” whole carcass approach that is the cornerstone of ethical meat cooking.

You’ll learn how to cook and enjoy offal and some of the thriftier cuts of beef, lamb and pork.

You'll learn:

  • the difference you can make by buying your meat from ethical sources
  • new recipes to cook different meat cuts
  • the impact of supermarket meats and factory farming on the food industry, animals and environment
  • where to source meat from and what questions to ask about your meat before you buy it

The course includes:

  • 4 on-demand video lessons - presented by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Gelf Alderson
  • lifetime access to the videos, notes and interactive class
  • flexible classes - join and learn when and where you like
  • downloadable lesson notes
  • practical meat sourcing and cooking assignments and recipes (with tutor feedback available)
  • access on your mobile, PC, Mac or laptop
  • small interactive online classroom - chat online to students from around the world and share your creative ideas

Independent Cookery Schools Association approved

This course has been approved by the Independent Cookery Schools Association (ICSA), recognising the highest standards of training.

Time to complete the ethical meat course:

Every student is different but in general we think the whole course will take around 16 hours to complete including:

  • Video lessons: 4 hours in total
  • Course notes: 30 minutes per lesson
  • Your ethical meat sourcing and cooking recipe assignments: at least 2 hours per lesson
  • Interactive classroom time: 15 minutes per lesson
  • Tutor feedback review (Expert level): 15 minutes per lesson

You'll need:

Your lesson notes will include the full details of the ingredients you'll need, but you will be sourcing sustainable meat for your recipes, and learning new meat recipes to make the most of all the meat you buy, so you will need standard kitchen equipment..

Ready to get started?

Just add the course to your basket above - choose the 'Expert' option for personal feedback from Hugh and Gelf on your meat sourcing and cooking assignments.

If you know someone who'd love this course then give it as a gift - just tick "This is a gift" at the checkout.

Any questions? Contact us by clicking on the orange speech symbol - we'd love to hear from you.

Lesson summary

Supplier stories
Hugh starts by explaining his views on ethical meat, including understanding animal welfare and how to make the best choices when you source your meat. You'll visit a farm to see how cows, pigs and chickens can be raised ethically. A butcher will show you what he looks for in ethical meat and suppliers.
Ethical Poultry & Pork
Hugh starts on the “front line” of animal welfare with the world’s most popular meat (and arguably most abused farm animal) - chicken. Venturing back to the territory of his Channel 4’s series, Hugh’s Chicken Run, Hugh pulls no punches in explaining the miserable life of an intensively reared chicken. Hugh continues his campaign in this course to encourage more consumers to demand ethically-sourced, free range and organic chicken. By explaining the “welfare ladder” and raising the veil on often misleading labels, he’ll show you how to make choices that not only support better farming practices but bring a better tasting chicken into your kitchen. Once you’ve understood how to source the best chicken you can buy, Gelf will show you how to make it last across several meals. Hugh will take you to meet the River Cottage pigs in person, showing how small scale farming in outdoor systems encourages them to root and forage and socialise, keeping the animals content and improving the quality of their meat. Hugh discusses the various labels for both fresh and cured pork and also points out the visual differences in the meat quality from the different systems. He urges you always to source pork from contented animals reared in a humane way. Executive chef at River Cottage - Gelf Alderson will bring you some of his best recipes for making the most of the thriftier cuts of pork. You'll make slow braised pork and look at the best ways to use leftovers from a roast chicken.
Beef & Lamb
Sheep are thankfully not reared as intensively as pigs and chickens, and there are many opportunities to buy locally reared lamb of good quality in the UK. However, there are still welfare and sustainability issues to be addressed with lamb, and Hugh explains the problem with the “spring lamb” market, usually involving meat from lambs over-wintered indoors. He goes on to demystify the terms Hogget and Mutton – meat from older animals which often also turn out to be the best choice for quality and sustainability. Our farmer Harry will give you further insight into organic sheep rearing and then Gelf will take you into the kitchen to show you excellent recipes from cuts you may not have used before. Beef has rightly been identified as one of the most problematic meats from a climate point of view, and so Hugh explains the difference between extensive and intensive beef farming, and the welfare and sustainability issues around each. Once again he interprets the often misleading labels on beef in the supermarket, and explains the often misunderstood connection between the dairy industry and the beef industry. He also explains his preference for organic beef and introduces the useful new certification for pasture reared beef. You’ll get to meet the local “suckler herd” of North Devon cattle, which supplies beef to River Cottage. We'll be joining Gelf in the kitchen for a session with one of his favourite cuts of beef. He'll demonstrate how to cook slow cooked neck of beef, and hogget neck.
Game & Offal
Hugh will look at the ethics behind sourcing and eating wild and game meat. He'll move onto look at offal - and how you can embrace nose to tail eating and respect the life of the animal. Gelf will show you some liver and kidney recipes to make you love cooking with offal.

Choose how you want to learn

Expert-level

Develop your learning further with marked assignments and personal tuition:

  • Start the course whenever you like
  • Tutor access for personalised assignment feedback & coaching
  • Certificate of completion and CPD learning hours
  • Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
  • Lessons with expert videos & notes
  • Group chat & direct message with tutor & classmates
  • Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom

Peer-level

Get the most from shared knowledge and community study:

  • Start course whenever you like
  • Practise what you learn with your peers
  • Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
  • Lessons with videos & notes
  • Course assignments
  • Group chat & direct message classmates
  • Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom
Portrait of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

meet the expert

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Award-winning advocate for ethical food, sustainability, and environmental stewardship, celebrated writer and broadcaster.

Read more

Why choose Learning with Experts?

Start whenever it suits you, and immerse yourself in motivational lesson tutorials with expert guidance.
Enhance your learning and personal growth with lesson assignments. Each course includes an optional assignment at the end of every lesson.
Drop a friendly message or respond to your assignment feedback. Our world-class experts are just a click away, ready to help you!
Stay informed about your own progress and those of your peers, and take joy in celebrating achievements along the way.
Chat and share ideas with passionate communities of learners from around the world.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between PEER and EXPERT options?

At Peer and Expert level, you get access to the same core content and features:

  • Video lesson tutorials led by your expert tutor
  • Downloadable lesson notes
  • Option to practise what you learn with lesson assignments
  • Group learning within an online interactive classroom of up to 20 classmates
  • Lifetime access to videos, notes and classroom

If you choose Expert level, you get all of the above plus the following:

  • Personalised assignment feedback and coaching from your expert tutor
  • Opportunity to interact with your expert tutor through a private messaging system
  • Certificate of completion.
What is an online classroom?

Our online classroom has been developed to allow you to learn from our experts in a sociable environment alongside up to 20 other students. After each video tutorial led by your expert, you will be encouraged to practice what you have learned with optional assignments - these can be seen by the other students in your class, who are free to share their own thoughts and questions with you.

You will be encouraged to take part in an ongoing class discussion where you can discuss ideas, post images or work, and comment on each other’s assignments. It’s a great way to learn from other like-minded people who share your passion from all over the world.

This means not only do you benefit from people who are outstanding in their field, but also from a close-knit group of like-minded people whom you can learn alongside. Group learning has shown to greatly improve not just the experience of studying, but also how well you retain the knowledge, and we have built our classroom experience around this fact.

When can I start my course and how long will it take?

You can start your course any time within 12 months after receipt of your purchase confirmation email. Once you start, you’ll have lifetime access — meaning you can revisit the lesson videos and notes whenever you want.

Our courses are designed so that you can study at your own pace, some prefer to binge learn while others like to spread their studying over a longer period of time - it’s completely up to you. To give you a rough time frame, each lesson video is approximately 30-40 minutes long, and we recommend that you spend around an hour on each assignment.

How often can I speak with the Expert?

If you opt for the Expert version of your course, the time you have to interact with your tutor is limited to course length. You will have one week per lesson to chat to your tutor and to have your assignments marked, and during this period you can ask them as many questions as you would like.

To find out the length of each course, head to the product page and look at the Course outline to see how many lessons it contains. e.g. a four lesson course assumes that you will have completed the assignments within four weeks.

Your tutor interaction period will start as soon as you enter the classroom. If you find that you are struggling to complete the assignments in the allocated time or you wish to put this function on hold, just get in contact with one of the team via the support button and we will help you out.

Support and full FAQs

If you need any help with a course, be it one you’ve started already, or one you are looking to purchase, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Support email address, or view the full FAQ’s here.

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Awards and accreditations