MRE Menu #14

I have always been kind of curious to know if MREs were any good. I know the armed services has been surviving off of them for years, so I knew you could survive off them, but would you want to was my question.

I was able to find some on eBay for about $10 a pouch. They arrived rather quickly in an express mailer pouch. I got three of them to try out. They were dated 2019 and said they would be good for up to 5 years. I guess the armed services make new ones every year and that is why they can sell them to the public.

The outside pouch they come in is very thick plastic. I was able to open it up with my hands but only if I pressed in on a little wax seal part at the top of the package. Inside there were more little pouches containing a spoon, hot sauce, the noodles, chocolate protein powder, crackers, peanut butter, a heating element, a chocolate energy bar, and condiments (which had matches, salt sugar, gum, toilet paper, toilette). I love how the pouch was designed. I have a little bit of an experience with freeze dried food and “just add water” food but this was easier than those. There were instructions but it was labelled in a way that you could kind of just know what to do. I could easily see where I had to tear, fold, or add water.

The main meal was the Creamy Spinach Fettuccine, which I heated up with the chemical heater. The chemical heater did it’s job very well. I could have easily heated up my main meal and boiled some extra water. The noodles were good but a little bland. I added the hot sauce, which was actually Tabasco sauce and that made it a lot better.

For what it was it was OK. The whole pouch had 2,500 calories, so you definitely could survive on what was in there. Would I want to eat it every day, no way, I like fresh meals better.

I tried everything and shared the meal with my family and I still didn’t finish it all. I think for the convenience factor $10 was a reasonable price. The one thing I didn’t like about it was I noticed the sodium factor was high, so even though it provided plenty of vitamins I wouldn’t necessarily call it healthy.

Inside the noodle pouch, that heater was really hot.

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