Meat on the bone, also called bone-in meat is meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

 that is sold with some or all of the bone

Bone

Bones are rigid organs that constitute part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue...

s included in the cut or portion, i.e. meat that has not been filleted

Fillet (cut)

A fillet is a cut or slice of boneless meat or fish.- Meat :In the case of beef, in the USA, the term most often refers to beef tenderloin, especially filet mignon.- Chicken :...

. The phrase "on the bone" can also be applied to specific types of meat, most commonly ham on the bone, and to fish

Fish (food)

Fish is a food consumed by many species, including humans. The word "fish" refers to both the animal and to the food prepared from it. Fish has been an important source of protein for humans throughout recorded history.-Terminology:...

. Meat or fish on the bone may be cooked

Cooking

Cooking is the process of preparing food by use of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions. Cooks themselves also vary widely in skill and training...

 and served with the bones still included or the bones may be removed at some stage in the preparation.

Examples of meat on the bone include T-bone steak

T-bone steak

The T-bone and Porterhouse are steaks of beef cut from the short loin and including a T-shaped bone with meat on each side: the larger is a strip steak and the smaller a tenderloin steak...

s, chops

Meat chop

A meat chop is a cut of meat cut perpendicularly to the spine, and usually containing a rib or riblet part of a vertebra and served as an individual portion. The most common kinds of meat chops are pork and lamb. A thin boneless chop, or one with only the rib bone, may be called a cutlet, though...

, spare ribs

Spare ribs

Spare ribs are a variety of pork ribs and beef ribs, cooked and eaten in various cuisines around the world. They are the most inexpensive cut of pork and beef ribs. They are a long cut from the lower portion of the pig or cattle, specifically the belly and breastbone, behind the shoulder, and...

, chicken

Chicken (food)

Chicken is the most common type of poultry in the world, and is prepared as food in a wide variety of ways, varying by region and culture.- History :...

 leg portions and whole chicken. Examples of fish on the bone include unfilleted plaice

Plaice

Plaice is the common name of four species of flatfishes.Plaice or PLAICE may also refer to:* USS Plaice , a Balao-class submarine* PLAICE, an open source hardware FLASH programmer, memory emulator, and logic analyzer...

 and some cuts of salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...

.

Meat on the bone is used in many traditional recipes.

Effect on flavour and texture

The principal advantage of cooking meat on the bone is that it adds flavour and texture. Albumen and collagen

Collagen

Collagen is a group of naturally occurring proteins found in animals, especially in the flesh and connective tissues of mammals. It is the main component of connective tissue, and is the most abundant protein in mammals, making up about 25% to 35% of the whole-body protein content...

 in the bones release gelatine when boiled which adds substance to stews, stocks, soups and sauces. The bone also conducts heat within the meat so that it cooks more evenly and prevents meat drying out and shrinking during cooking.

Cooking meat on the bone

Meat on the bone typically cooks faster than boneless meat when roasted

Roasting

Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat, whether an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting usually causes caramelization or Maillard browning of the surface of the food, which is considered by some as a flavor enhancement. Roasting uses more indirect, diffused heat , and is...

 in a joint. However, individual portions such as chops can take longer to cook than their filleted equivalents.

Value for money

Meat on the bone is quicker and easier to butcher as there is no filleting involved. Filleting is a skilled process that adds to labour and wastage costs as meat remaining on the bones after filleting is of low value (although it can be recovered

Mechanically separated meat

Mechanically separated meat , a product also known as mechanically recovered/reclaimed meat or mechanically deboned meat , is a paste-like meat product produced by forcing beef, pork, turkey or chicken, under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat...

). As a result meat on the bone can be better value for money however relative value can be hard to judge as the bone part of the product is inedible. Different portions may contain a greater or lesser proportion of bone.

Ease of handling

The presence of bones may make meat products more bulky, less regular in shape and less easy to pack. Bones may make preparation and carving more difficult however bones can sometimes be used as handles to make the meat easier to eat.

Import restrictions

Foot-and-mouth disease

Foot-and-mouth disease

Foot-and-mouth disease or hoof-and-mouth disease is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids...

 (FMD) is a contagious disease affecting cloven-hoofed

Cloven hoof

A cloven hoof is a hoof split into two toes. This is found on members of the mammalian order Artiodactyla. Examples of mammals that possess this type of hoof are deer and sheep. In folklore and popular culture, a cloven hoof has long been associated with the Devil.The two digits of cloven hoofed...

 animals. Because FMD rarely infects humans but spreads rapidly among animals, it is a much greater threat to the agriculture industry than to human health.

FMD can be contracted by contact with infected meat, with meat on the bone representing a higher risk than filleted meat. As a result, import of meat on the bone remains more restricted that of filleted meat in many countries.

Injury

Meat and fish served on the bone can present a risk of accident or injury. Small, sharp fish bones are the most likely to cause injury although sharp fragments of meat bone can also cause problems. Typical injuries include bones being swallowed and becoming trapped in the throat and bones being trapped under the tongue.

Discarded bones can also present a risk of injury to pet

Pet

A pet is a household animal kept for companionship and a person's enjoyment, as opposed to wild animals or to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic or productive reasons. The most popular pets are noted for their loyal or playful...

s or wild animals as some types of cooked meat bone break into sharp fragments when chewed.

BSE

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy , commonly known as mad-cow disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. BSE has a long incubation period, about 30 months to 8 years, usually affecting adult cattle at a peak age onset of...

 (BSE), also known as "mad cow disease", is a fatal brain disease affecting cattle. It is believed by most scientists that the disease may be transmitted to human beings who eat the brain

Brain

The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...

 or spinal cord

Spinal cord

The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain . The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system...

 of infected carcasses. In humans, it is known as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease or CJD is a degenerative neurological disorder that is incurable and invariably fatal. CJD is at times called a human form of mad cow disease, given that bovine spongiform encephalopathy is believed to be the cause of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans.CJD...

(vCJD or nvCJD), and is also fatal.

The largest outbreak of BSE was in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, with several other countries affected to a lesser extent. The outbreak started in 1984, and continued into the 1990s, leading to increasing concern among governments and beef consumers as the risk to humans became known, but could not be quantified. Many countries banned or restricted the import of beef products from countries affected by BSE.

Animal brain and spinal cord had already been removed from the human and animal food chain when, in 1997, prion

Prion

A prion is an infectious agent composed of protein in a misfolded form. This is in contrast to all other known infectious agents which must contain nucleic acids . The word prion, coined in 1982 by Stanley B. Prusiner, is a portmanteau derived from the words protein and infection...

 infection was also detected in the dorsal root ganglia within the spinal column of infected animals. As a result, beef on the bone was banned from sale in the UK as a precaution. This led to criticism that the government was overreacting. The European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 also considered banning beef and lamb on the bone. The UK ban lasted from December 1997 to December 1999, when it was lifted and the risk from beef on the bone declared negligible.

Use as a metaphor

The phrase "meat on the bones" is used metaphorically

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

 to mean substance. For example "I expect that we'll start putting some meat on the bones of regulatory reform" indicates an intention to add detail and substance to plans for regulatory reform

Regulatory reform

Regulatory Reform concerns improvements to the quality of government regulation.At the international level, the "OECD Regulatory Reform Programme is aimed at helping governments improve regulatory quality -- that is, reforming regulations that raise unnecessary obstacles to competition, innovation...

 and implies that these plans were previously only set out in broad or vague terms.

The phrase to "flesh out" relies of the same imagery in which a basic idea is likened to a skeleton

Skeleton

The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...

or bones and the specific details of the idea to meat or flesh on that skeleton.