If you want good reviews of the rations of many nations, watch the Youtube channels of Kiwi Dude and Gundog4314.
MREs are good for quite some time, depending on storage temperature. At 90°F they last 55 months. At 60°F they are good for 130 months. Note that these expiration dates are just like those on canned food, ie rough and just guarantee freshness. Older rations are still edible (for a twisted definition thereof) for quite some time.
For an interesting change of pace, try to score some Humanitarian Rations sometime. Seriously not bad. Ditto the Halal/Kosher meals.
For really long-term storage (not prepper, but prepared) look into the offerings from Wise Foods. It’s all meat free, so the stuff will last through the heat death of the universe. Moderately tasty, too.
I’ve enjoyed Gundog’s videos but not a big fan of Kiwi Dude. He blathers on a bit too much for me. Get to the point or be interesting while you wander. Also the Boss seems rather undiscriminating in her views.
About 17 years ago, a friend of mine left me a case of MREs before he moved out to the Philippines. I’m not entirely sure why he had them – he wasn’t military, but he did hang out with military, and these were, IIRC, military MREs.
Anyhow…I actually quite liked it. I especially enjoyed the self-heating packs they would come with and the cute teensy weensy bottles of Tabasco sauce. I can’t remember which meals I enjoyed the most, but none of them were particularly disgusting to my tastes. I’d definitely eat them again. For food that will last years and years and years, they were perfectly fine. Definitely not any worse than Spaghetti-Os or canned ham. (Actually, I far prefer them to Spaghetti-Os and pretty much any Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee or Franco-American product.)
I sought out MREs when I had a 21 hour train trip, and I knew I’d be seriously jonesing for hot food after a while, and the Amtrak dining car is both expensive and mediocre. One MRE actually supplied two meals, supplementing the cold food I had in my little drinks cooler at lunch. I was a tiny bit worried about the heater producing a smell, but it was barely noticeable, and I was willing to forgo it if I had a seatmate at dinner time.
I was perfectly happy with what I ate, no better or worse than the average Banquet TV dinner.
OK, dice rolled and a 24 pack of USDOD MREs has been ordered. Just for kicks I also ordered a pair of Russian 24hours ration packs. I will report back if anything seems surprisingly good, legendarily bad or if I succumb to fatal gastritis.
I got home from work, hungry and tired with no interest in cooking dinner only to find a suspiciously dense package on my front porch. Opening it, I find the two Russian meals I ordered. OK, dinner is served. Taped to the outside of each meal pack is a roughly translated contents list so that I can get some clue about what I’m eating. Actually, the translation is rough enough that I wonder if it was done deliberately as part of a cute marketing bit. Oh well, time to dive in. This is what was in the box.
“Ships biscuits from wheat flour of 1 grade” (4 packs) – Just about the blandest crackers I’ve ever had, not sweet at all and very lightly salted. That said, I really enjoyed the near bulletproof texture. I think I’m going to try to duplicate this. It shouldn’t be that hard to come up with a simple recipe.
“Rice porridge with beef” - Tasted like tinned corned beef but actually not bad. A bit of Tobasco helped mightily.
“Vegetable stew with beef meat” - This was a very thick but standard tomato based veggie beef canned soup. No surprises, certainly nothing to write home about in either a good or bad way.
“Braised beef” - Beef fat, just beef fat, no significant amount of meat at all with a salty tomato sauce.
“Liver pate with butter” - Just what it sounds like – a soft, spreadable cracker topping. A mild liver taste that needed salt but was pretty good. I’ll stick with braunschweiger though.
“Caviar from eggplants” - Tasted like a slightly chunky, sweet, herby tomato sauce – decidedly meh.
“process cheese sterilized” - Velveeta but bouncier.
“Fruit stick – prunes with nuts” - Imagine a quadruple sized Fig Newton without the baked crust – just the filling. Add overtones of Vicks Vap-O-Rub.
Other contents not sampled (yet)
jam fruit – some kind of fruity cracker spread/jam/jelly
instant coffee
tea bags (2)
“concentrate for drink toning” powder - instant Gatorade?
“Means for disinfecting water” - water purifying pills?
2 types of wet wipes – one for hands, one for your kit/gear
Sugar, salt, black pepper, matches, napkins, three plastic spoons
“Dry fuel a portable set for food warming up” - 3 Ezbit like fuel tabs plus a small folding stand.
On balance, I enjoyed the experience. I wont do it again but I’ve certainly had worse meals in my life.
Waiting 24 hours for toxic effects / gastritis / desire to catch moose and squirrel.
You are not ignorant for wanting buy some MREs. You are not being practical though. If you are curious about MREs you only need to eat one to find out they are at best a reasonable facsimile of food. After that, if you would eat another one for any reason except to avoid starvation then knock yourself out eating all that you can want.
This is one of my favorite You Tube channels. She’s eaten MREs from multiple countries, and that includes several that use non-Roman alphabets, like the one in post #3.
If you check out her channel, be sure to watch some of the very “creative” hot dog recipes she’s made lately. It would make an MRE look like gourmet food in comparison.
That’s the only reason I find them remotely interesting, because I just want to do that once or twice. That said, I do watch a few YouTubers who eat stuff, and MREs do come up.
My favorite was probably Mike Jeavons, since he did a Week On ones from different countries. IIRC, the US fared quite well.
C-rats are called MCIs? Never heard that one before. But truth be told, I don’t remember reading the boxes or cases.
MRE = Meals that Refuse to Exit. They’ll plug you up but good.
You should also try the arctic MREs, or RCWs (for Rations, Cold Weather). They are two pouches taped together as one ration, and they pack a lot of calories. But humping around in the snow, you burn a lot of calories too.
I can relate to the Eddie Murphy story shared above. When you’re out in the field, tired and hungry and miserable, those MREs taste damned good!
Really, though, MREs aren’t bad. They make for a decent enough meal
Once I took my three nieces & nephew on a backyard picnic, with my wife, and all 5 of us had MREs. It was like an adventure, and they loved it — all the little pouches, the Just Add Water To The Fill Line to heat the meal (there was a decent breeze so the smell dissipated), the candy and the gum — it was fun and they enjoyed it.
It was an experience. I think that was the year I gave them ammo boxes for their birthday presents, and they loved those too. For the girls, I painted theirs pink.
The US MRE fared well only because of his rather dreadful choices in other survival “meals”. Five days of nothing but dried, compressed bleakness, no thanks.
Just want to mention about the heater packs in the American MREs – it takes very little water to fill to the line – add water very slowly so you don’t over fill.
