When you buy chicken or other meats do you buy the meats bone-in or boneless? Bone-in meats are usually a lot cheaper than their boneless equivalent but how much are you paying for the bones? I tend to go fore boneless, skinless cuts as I generally don't eat the fatty skin and I am very inefficient at deboning chicken. For me, this means a lot of extra prep time and a lot of wasted meat. I wonder what the cost difference really is between the two. For fish, on the other hand, I am more competent as I know the anatomy better. This makes bone-in fish a cheaper alternative for me. Has anyone ever deboned a chicken and weighed it afterwards to see the real mass and compared prices?
I never really pay attention to the price per pound when buying meat, though I know I should. I've always just assumed that the more processed the meat was, the more it costed. But you make an interesting point about weighing the meat after you've de-boned it, to see if the price per pound was still good. I generally buy all my meats bone in and skin on, because I save the bones and the skin for homemade stocks. I feel like I am paying more and getting less for my money when I buy processed boneless skinless meats. Actually I find doing some of the butchering at home is a bit relaxing, sort of zen like. When I get home from the grocery store, I will break down the meats and portion them off to put in my freezer. As an added bonus I am also getting practice with my knife skills, which will help me try out more advanced recipes down the road.
I use both. For some dishes, I'm going to buy boneless specifically. For example, if I want to do stuffed chicken bones, then having several breasts already prepared is very helpful and worth the extra cost. But if I'm going to be shredding chicken for a dish that I don't need full breasts for? I go with a whole chicken or leg quarters instead. They're much cheaper and doesn't really take much more effort either.
Most times I debone the meat myself, it's cheaper than buying boneless meat and I already know how to do it. My grandparents used to grow pigs when I was little and all the meat was processed by us. There's something nice in performing clean cuts, and just like ohiotom76, I find it relaxing. Plus, if you take bones from certain meats and smoke them you can cook some really great food!
I just buy my chicken boneless, as much as possible - unless I need the whole chicken, which is rare. I don't care too much about it being expensive because I can just save my money elsewhere. The most important thing for me here is that I get to save myself some time and effort, which I could be using to be productive. The only time I ever buy bone in chicken is for when I plan on making fried chicken, but again, I rarely do because all restaurants here sell fried chicken and I can just buy those if I really craved it.
