[1][2] Meat floss is used as a decorative and flavorful topping for many foods, such as congee, tofu, rice and savory soy milk.

Meat floss is a popular food item in Chinese, Vietnamese (called ruốc in the North, and chà bông in the South), and Indonesian dining.

[4] A very similar product is pork fu (肉脯; pinyin: ròufǔ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: bah-hú), which is less fried and less shredded than meat floss, and has a more fibrous texture.

In Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia, beef or chicken floss is the most popular variant, commonly called abon in Indonesian and serunding in Malay.

In the Muslim-majority Hausa cuisine of Northern Nigeria, dambu nama is a dry, shredded beef snack, similar to meat floss.