So, what’s in a MRE that we’re feeding the troops…and the hurricane victims. (I hate calling the “refugees”. These are our fellow Americans, darn it!)
All kinds of stuff. MREs.
PORK RIBS, BONELESS IN BBQ (9 servings each 2 rib sections)
- CORNED BEEF HASH (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- BEEF CHUNKS/NOODLES/SCE (9 servings each 1 1/4 cup)
- PASTA & ITLN SSGE LNKS/TOM SAUCE (9 servings each 1 1/4 cup w/2 sausage)
- OMELET W/ BACON & CHEESE (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- OMELET W/SMOKED SGE & POT. (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- SCRMBL EGGS W COLORING (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- POTATOES,SWEET,GLAZED (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- RICE ORIENTAL (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- POTATOES W/ BACON PCS/SAUCE (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- BEANS W/ RICE & BACON (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- POTATOES/DICED W IN SAUCE (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- RICE WHITE (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- APPLE DESSERT (18 servings each 2/3 cup)
- BLUEBERRY DESERT (18 servings each 3/4 cup)
Uh, most of these items are deemed “ready to eat”? Like, rice? eggs? pork ribs!
Please explain how that’s possible… - Jinx 
These are the MRE type meals that are being served for some meals at the Riverside Centroplex in Baton Rouge to those folks displaced by Katrina (the nicer ones toward the bottom of the page).
I helped some of the elderly, who couldn’t understand the directions, prepare theirs and frankly, they looked and smelled very tasty!
They are fully cooked to kill any bacteria, then vacuum sealed to keep them out. They can even be eaten cold, if need be.
The elderly looked and smelled tasty? :eek:
I like MREs. (Of course, I never had to like them.) I wish I had a few cases on hand for when I don’t feel like cooking. The only thing I don’t like are the crackers. Those are really bad. But they’re pretty good when you get a tin of chicken a la king from the market and pour it on top. Everything else in the MRE is quite good. I just wish they still made the dehydrated fruit. I like the intense flavour better than the wet-pack stuff.
A few years ago, a colleague of mine who was a National Guard brought a case of MRE’s to work. Many of us were snacking on them for a week or so. Decent meals, certainly nothing horrible to eat.
Let me tell you that MREs are greatly superior to their predecessors, the C Rations and K Rations known to and detested by two generations of soldiers and Marines. The old rations were generally canned with some dry items, like crackers and pound cake. Cold C Rations, especially pork and eggs, were just nasty. The spaghetti with meat balls in tomato sauce was certainly not up to Chef B standard but was acceptable. Even cold the MREs are not too bad. They are based of dehydrated food for hikers, arctic explorers and mountain climbers. One of the best things is that some of them have a little tiny bottle of Louisiana hot pepper sauce included.
My limited experience with MREs is that they aren’t dehydrated, unless Spavined Gelding meant that the idea comes from dehydrated food. The few times I’ve eaten them (and they’re practically a day’s worth of calories and fat in a pack) I just threw the sealed pack into boiling water to heat them up then opened and ate without adding any more water. Though I did use a microwave once.
Do they still have the little bottle of Tabasco sauce in them? My brother got hooked on Tabasco (these days he puts them on everything) after getting them in MREs years ago. He said they came with about every packet.
When I see OP’s like this, I just feel old…
In Korea, ( after the official hostlities ) we had “C” and when I got back to the states, I had my first “K” rations… Yeah, I almost had to buy brown shoe polish…
The Jungle Training Areas here in Panama used to be littered with teeny bottles of Tabasco sauce.
Although I’m sure they are preferable to older forms of field rations, one of the joke names the GIs here called them were “Meals Rejected by Ethiopians.”
Not to hijack things, but what difference does this make?
I keep several cases of MREs around the house, in the truck, in the filing cabinet at school, etc. Living in an earthquake zone, it just seems prudent. They aren’t bad at all. I’ve been known to nuke one instead of eating the “offering” the cafeteria had that day. The Tabasco makes anything palatable. 
I’m glad I don’t have to eat MREs very often (in fact, when I was deployed for OIF, I didn’t eat a single MRE…but I was a REMF, so I guess that’s why. 
) That said, they aren’t so bad. My favorite is the Chicken with Salsa. Mmmm… The pound cake is pretty darn tasty too, so I’m always pumped when I get a pound cake in my MRE.
The military version do, whereas the civilian ones don’t. Military ones are much better, more food, tobassco, koolaid mix, etc… They also had hydrogen cookers in them.
The civilain versons were really basic. Generally, one entree, some crackers, peanut butter/jelly, coffee, and no cookers. My buddies and I take some whenever we go camping. Great for when its raining out and you cant get a fire going or are too tired to cook. Both versions are available thru the internet with the difference being the cost obviously.
Depends on who you buy them from. If you get the Sopakco Sure-Pack 12, you are getting military MREs, basically.
That’s where I got mine. They didn’t come with the cooker though. (This was about ten years ago.)
Hey, Jman! How things in K-town?
I have a clear recollection of opening a brown vinyl bag of, I think, beef stew and pouring in a bit of hot water and then stirring the thing up until it became food. Same with hash brown potatoes, although they could be eaten dry like a really big, thick potato chip.
The great advantage to the MREs was weight and space. A single C Ration came in a cardboard carton, maybe 4" x 4" x 6", and contained four cans and a couple packets and weighed maybe three or four pounds. When you put a couple of them in your rucksack it was a substantial weight and took up space that could other wise be used for toilet paper or a couple pairs of socks. MREs, on the other hand, are pretty flat and relatively light. They are light because, I say again, because they are dehydrated and you are not carrying a bunch of extra water around. You can stick a couple days rations in the outside pockets on the ALICE pack with no trouble at all. The ideal solution is to have a jeep or a Hummer or a chopper bring in cases of rations on a “just in time” basis. That didn’t always happen.
The bad thing is that the MRE comes with the same God-awful GI toilet paper that came with the old C and K Rations. At least you use to get a quarter pack of cigarettes with the old Cs and Ks, sometimes Lucky Strike Greens.
GusNSpot, ain’t it true, ain’t it true. This may turn into an old soldier’s web site if we are not careful. Next we will have a discussion of the P-38 can opener. Still have one on your dog tag chain?