Class Cutups : Students Taught How to Butcher and Wrap Meat in Lab as Part of Course at Orange Coast College

Michelle Coward’s roommates laugh at her favorite class at Orange Coast College.

While her friends study art and fashion merchandising, her major is a bit meatier. Literally.

Coward is one of seven students enrolled in Animal Science 133, a meat evaluation class at the community college in Costa Mesa. Wearing white coveralls, they learn how to cut and wrap meat in a new laboratory.

Designed to offer real “hands on” experience, the course will help students as consumers to choose quality meats at the market, says program director Monte McKibban. Although students are taught skills that could help them get jobs as butchers, he said most use the training to prepare to transfer to four-year universities.

Learn by Doing

“We follow the ‘learn-by-doing’ aspect,” McKibban said. “They come out here and they see a swine carcass lying on a table . . . then they can start seeing what you’ve been talking about in lecture.”

One of 11 courses in the animal science program, which draws about 160 students each quarter, the meat evaluation class was offered last year but only in lecture format. It wasn’t until this past summer, with the help of $4,000 in federal funds, that secondhand freezers, tables and saws were purchased. A room once used as a dog kennel was drafted for use as a classroom.

The one-hour lectures on Mondays and Fridays are now supplemented with at least four hours of lab Wednesday afternoons.

The progress of the students has been “amazing,” McKibban said, recalling the first day of class in mid-August.

“The students at first didn’t even know where to break carcasses,” he said. “These kids now can break carcasses and wrap them.”

Cutting Final

Grades are determined by lab work and by written exams on lecture and textbook material. As part of the final, students will completely break down, cut and wrap a pig, steer or lamb, McKibban said.

The animals are supplied by students or local farmers, or are USDA-approved livestock purchased by the college. They are slaughtered either at the campus or at Cal Poly Pomona.

Students must complete a livestock production class, in which they raise their own animals, before they can enroll in meat evaluation. Many butcher the animals they raised, using the meat for their own consumption.

With the addition of the meat lab, McKibban says the animal science program is complete. Students are now able to work with the animals they raise all the way from the college farm to the dinner table.

Because there are no labor costs,

the class charges much less for cutting and wrapping than supermarkets or commercial butchers. Students and faculty members are able to purchase inexpensive cuts of USDA-approved meat on Friday afternoons, and the class has begun supplying pork sausage to campus snack bars. One afternoon, they filled an order for 120 pounds of meat.

Profits Go Back to Program

All the profits are pumped back into the program for supplies and equipment, McKibban said.

“We only work one afternoon a week. We are not trying to compete with supermarkets. We try to confine it to the campus,” he said. “But we do have to be self-supporting in our program.”

For Coward, 19, who transferred from the University of Arizona this year, the class has been a pleasant surprise.

“I couldn’t believe it when I came here. It’s like a university level lab,” said Coward, who hopes to be a veterinarian one day. “I’ve learned more in these two months than I learned in a year at U of A.”

McKibban, who was born on a farm and has taught at the college for nine years, wishes every student would take at least one class in agriculture.

“I just think that in our society today agriculture is not taken that seriously,” he said. “People are more concerned with making the buck than with agriculture.”

Raised Champion Pig

Scott Langston, 20, of Costa Mesa sees the meat lab as a valuable addition to the college’s program. Langston recently raised a 220-pound champion pig that he sold at the Los Angeles County Fair auction, turning a $100 profit in the bargain.

“Everyone who wants to go into (agriculture) should definitely have (this course),” Langston said as he weighed one-pound clumps of sausage on a scale.

The work, however, is not for the faint of heart.

“When you see a lamb get slaughtered, that’s tough. Those lambs are awful cute. But it’s not that hard once you get involved in it,” Langston said. “It’s not like a dog. I raise a dog to be a friend. I raise a pig for agricultural purposes.”