Of course the great recycler of all: Give them to your dogs. If you don’t have one adopt and you will never throw away any scraps :) Also, if you don’t like dogs then get chickens. Chickens will peck every bit of meat off then the bones can compost in their pen. Plus they will give you a nice egg in return.

Cooked bones are brittle and can leave bone splinters in a dogs mouth ( I have a vet friend who’s main dog clients have suffered from this problem) so please don’t feed them to your dog.

If you were really concerned about the environment, you probably wouldn’t be eating meat to begin with.

Anyone who lives in a first world country (or is lucky enough to live the lifestyle) has absolutely no right to make such a comment. Doing so is hypocritical in the extreme.

Ben,

surely that depends on how the meat was produced and what you’re comparing it to. Was it an animal which ate leftovers? Did it do other useful work during its lifetime? Was it a wild animal that you hunted?

If you’re comparing it to vegetables, were they flown in from Israel? Were oil based fertilizers used in its production? Was it sprayed with pesticides?

If you were *really* concerned about the environment, you probably wouldn’t be using a computer and accessing the Internet.

And if you were paying attention at all, rather than trolling unhelpfully, you’ll have noticed that there was no mention of eating meat, just composting bones *free from the butcher*.

John,

I don’t think it really matters how the meat was produced. The amount of meat that is produced in a sustainable manner is vanishingly small compared to the amount that is factory farmed. Perhaps hunting a wild animal is environmentally friendly, but it generally goes along with owning a truck, meaning that the hunting is an excuse for driving a gas guzzler year round. That’s not to mention giving support to the arms industry, who aren’t exactly earth friendly. Feel free to point out if you’ve made a bow and arrow out of recycled tooth picks and dental floss :)

Sure, veggies may be flown in from far. I try to buy local when I can, or at least from the same continent. Regardless of this, meat production uses up to 7 times the amount of land as a vegetarian diet.

Sure, I admit to trolling a bit, since it did not explicitly say that the meat was being eaten. It is an important issue though, so it deserves to be brought up when the chance arises.

Boiling them with onions and a mixture of spices will give you a great soup stock. Just let it simmer on low heat on the stove or even in the oven.

Not only will the meat fall off the bones, you leech most of the marrow out as well. The stock can be used for soup, stew, gravy etc.

In very old time, they used to carve chicket bones to make buttons for clothing.

You need to clean the bone very well and then cut it and carve into the shape you want.

now you are talking serious business. how about carving out those african necklesses, bangles and the like. aint we headed for stoneage anyway?

hyyhy el salvador how are you doing you have to recycle more my dear friends

you dont have to kill or eat animals throw papers to the trash can , you have to put in recycle to they were more papaers and aluminions , bottles etc.

Please don’t give chicken or pork bones to dogs, as they splinter quite easily and could choke your pet or damage his teeth and gums. You could clean and bleach them (perhaps naturally with bicarb of soda?) and use them for Hallowe’en dressing up materials. Nigello

The exception to the bones to animals rule is if the bones haven’t been cooked - they are fine.

If you want to keep bones, there are two ways that I know of to clean them - maggots (quick if icky) and burying them (takes ages but tends to give a ‘natural’ finish).

When I was a kid, we had a pet dog. Our vet told us not to give bones to the dog, because bones splinter. So we pressure-cooked the bones until they were soft and the dog ate them all up, with relish! This seems a good solution, doesn’t it?

can also grind them and make dog pourage

Art….try to fit the bones together to make them look like a full sceleton glue the bits together put them on a stand and there you go.

You can put meat bones (and meat cheese etc) in a ‘Green Cone’. A sort of composter that seals in the smells that attracts vermin and uses ground worms to breakdown any food.

I guess a wormery might also be able to cope with bones.

This might sound crazy, but my gothic taste in aesthetics had me using the old bones of a KFC takeaway (Not mine, I’m Veggie - my wee brother ate the meat off it) to make earrings and hair decorations. I know of several websites that currently sell (human) bone jewellery necklaces to the gothic community, and one that does ethically-sourced bat bone jewellery. They’re priced quite highly, and I couldn’t say how popular they are (I’ve not seen anyone but me wearing them), but…here:

http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/hilda/churchyard/index.html

If you go ARE of a crafty nature and go with the jewellery idea:
1) Just use chicken/poultry bones as they’re are the smallest and most delicate, unless there’s any other small ones (pig/sheep knucklebones?)
2) Cleaning the bones is best done with a) teeth, if there’s any meat-eaters in the house, then b) an old toothbrush + a blunt knife (don’t scratch the bone!), then c) toilet bleach in a shallow tray overnight. Any cartilidge will stink and decay, so get it all off.
3) Coat with clear nail varnish for a tidy finish.
4) It’s probably best to super-glue the jewellery (lengthways onto an earring hook, the top of a hair-comb, a plain hairband), as piercing can cause it to splinter. It should still be secure.
5) If it’s not to your taste, you could try selling it on ebay. I just checked their policy on animal parts, and bones are fine so long as they’re not from an andangered species. There’s a hardcore goth or two out there that may well be looking for it. :)

(A fairly random idea, but that’s so far the only use I’VE been able to put bones to…!)

use them to make soup, my dad does that tastes really good.

ya, bones flavor soups really well, I’m from the south we do that all the time.

According to the Tightwad Gazette, adding a tablespoon of vinegar to bones when cooking them into soup will help you get the calcium. You won’t taste the vinegar. (I haven’t personally tried this yet.)

I’ve tried it & it works great as long as you don’t put too much vinegar.

bury them in some sand in your yard. the local insects will pick them clean, then bleach in the sun for a couple of weeks. the result is beautiful white bone that you can carve.

I boil, bleach, and then make necklaces and jewelry out of them.

even though you cant get me within a mile of meat of any kind, i do know you can use the bones (w/ a little meat attached) to make broths & soups.