Ah, the MRE. That portable, “tasty” meal eaten by US troops in the field, or when one’s unit doesn’t have anything else with which to feed people. As someone who has been in the military, I’ve eaten my share of them. They seem really cool at first, but that coolness factor wears off after about your second or third MRE. That’s when they start tasting the same.
A few years ago, my Air National Guard unit went to South Dakota for a two-week training exercise with the Army. During that time we had three meals a day: one hot meal and two MREs. Because we were in the Air Force and not the Army, we weren’t too keen on playing Army games and pretending we were at war. So we would leave our compound and go to McDonald’s or something similar for one of those meals. This resulted in a large collection of MREs for myself. After sitting in my basement at room temperature for the last three years, a good friend of mine really wanted to try one. So, I decided to document his experience for you all to see.
Here is the tasty meal we picked out: Beef with Mushrooms. There are about 24 different MREs out there right now. The military tends to phase out the most unpopular ones after a few years. I checked the latest MRE menu and the last time Beef with Mushrooms MREs were made was back in 2002. That makes this MRE at least five years old.
Here are the contents of the MRE. There are a few things that are common to all MREs and a few things that are different in each one. All come with matches, salt, sugar, a napkin, a moist towelette, coffee, creamer, a spoon, gum, Tabasco Sauce, and a flameless heater. The items that are unique to this MRE are the main course items, oatmeal cookies, crackers, cocoa mix, and strawberry jam. Other MREs might have jalapeño cheese spread instead of strawberry jam or Skittles instead of oatmeal cookies.
The first thing we tried was the crackers. We decided to put a little of the strawberry jam on them for taste. One thing MRE food lacks is flavor so anything you can enhance the taste is always a plus. The jam wasn’t too bad but the crackers were a little dry so we put those off to the side to fix our main course.
One cool thing about the MRE is that you don’t have to eat your food cold. Each one comes with a flameless heater. Just add water. Once the chemical reaction starts you can put in your meal pouches. The heater is surprisingly effective and will get so hot that it can burn you if you aren’t careful. The water will actually start boiling and steaming after about a minute. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to warm up the entire meal. Most of the heat is distributed unevenly throughout the food.
Once the rice pouch was heated my friend dug in. According to him it wasn’t too bad. I guess it’s pretty hard to screw up rice.
This is the main course. The actual beef and mushrooms. Yes, the food actually looks this disgusting in real life. It had the consistency of dog food. There’s also something unsettling about eating this stuff with a spoon, as if to add insult injury. One would think that the manufacturer could have at least supplied a spork.
This is why every MRE comes with Tabasco Sauce. At least that’s my opinion on the matter. People typically use it to hide the horrible taste or to bring out the “flavor” in the bland food. As you can see from the picture, the bottle is quite small so one must decide beforehand which food is the most disgusting and use it on that.
These oatmeal cookies are the “dessert”. Sometimes MREs will come with surprisingly good deserts. The mint pound cake is surprisingly tasty and is especially prized. These cookies, however, were not tasty in the least. They were bland (surprise) and fell apart when I took a bite out of one.
In conclusion, I hope you have enjoyed this little MRE play-by-play. Most MREs don’t taste too bad, but they don’t taste too good either. Also keep in mind that this particular MRE has been discontinued. You can actually buy MREs in some camping stores and on eBay, but they are a little pricey. I think they usually go for about $7.25 each, which is a little pricey for a crappy meal.
when you use the heater, did you leave it upright or at an angle? If you have it inclined, then the entire main course is heated up.
oh, and stay away from the pork chops… those make cardboard tasty
Mmmm. My dad always ate those in the field too….yuck! Never seen one that up close and personal though. Thank you for the photos.
Always the interesting photostory! Excellent.
Agreed the first MRE and maybe even the second one are kind of fun but when you’re out in the field messing with all this and then get to taste that bland mixture where everything tastes almost but not quite like what’s on the label… it get’s rough.
I kept one from the Army though and had it for my bachelor’s party, of course we didn’t have the flameless heater we had the canned heat things so that was much more fun.
PS: The French MRE’s are a lot better though… they’ve got chewing gum, chocolate, and a whole bunch of stuff.
PPS: about 3 crackers and you’re full anyways so why bother.
[:-]
MRE’s are danged tasty compared to the C rations my generation made do with. To this day, I’d still enjoy meeting whomever decided to include Ham And Lima Beans on our menu.
A buddy of mine who did some construction work in the gulf just after Katrina came back with a few cases of MREs, and he gave me one (case). I had one meal, and it ate well, but that sh&% did not agree with my digestive system at all. I wish that experience upon no one. I guess it’s like Mexican water…it can suffice for survival once one is acclimated to it. We all ought to write our congressmen letters and lobby for better food rations for those noble individuals who are defending our liberty.
Bill is right — I’ve got a hit out on the guy who came up with the C ration ham and eggs ::shudder::
I was in the Army in the early to mid eighties when MREs first came out. First time I got one was in Honduras — and we quickly started calling them Meals Ready to Explode, because so many of the packets weren’t properly prepared or something (or maybe it had something to do with the horrible climate in Honduras, Republic of).
Whatever the cause, things like peaches would come out of big bag all puffed up like a balloon — obviously inedible. Just imagine… 115 degrees, so humid you can hardly breathe, eaten up by sandfleas and mosquitos — and your food arrives spoiled… sheesh!
I don’t remember a heater or tobasco though… But we didn’t need a heater anyway as long as there was a 5kw generator nearby
Anything placed on the muffler of the generator gets cooked nicely…
Good to hear that the ingredients of a ‘ranger cookie’ are still there! Try this: tear off just the very top of the cream packet, dump the sugar in, fold the top over a couple times, shake it up real good, toss it into a fire till the brown paper is burned off, remove from fire, wait for it to cool down — peel the foil away and eat… yummm…
Still pretty cool - eatable after sitting in your basement for so long. Very Slow food
That’s very interesting . Thanks for the post.
This guy has some interesting things to say about mre’s. Apparently, they can make you pretty sick. The posted stories about constipation are funny, and kind of horrifying too. I think mre’s are disgusting.
Hey you are copying my avatar?
I’m a New Orleans resident and after moving back to the city right after Hurricane Katrina, I was pretty much forced to live off of those for about a week (couldn’t leave the city again due to Rita). I had those three meals a day for about a week.
I learned three things quickly.
1) Some of the MREs are better than others. Certain ones, such as the Pork Rib or the Beef Stew, were the subjects of heated arguments between me and the missus, others, such as the vegetarian ones, languished.
2) Even the civiliam MREs, such as the one you had, which is the same as the ones we were given, have around 900-1000 calories per meal. Eat those three meals a day, and you’re on a 3000 calorie per day diet. Because of that I gained a lot of weight very fast (though I dropped it just as fast when I started helping with the recovery effort).
3) The smell of the cooking chemicals will probably never leave your house…
Anyway, reading the post brought back some very powerful memories. Thank you for sharing it.
You spoiled Americans!
As an ex-Israeli soldier, this is Haute Cuisine compared to what we had to eat. No fancy heaters, no variety. The “main course” was invariably a can of meat loaf, often over 10 years old.
Sailed a boat 1000 miles down the Japanese coast (delivery, 4 on watch, 8 off) and ate nothing but MREs. First day started out 3 squares… and dropped rapidly off to 2 and sometimes 1 meal a day. I lost about 15 pounds on that trip. The stuff does get monotonous and there are still some crap “meals” in the mix. It is interesting to note, however, they do offer vegan meals now (that would have been unheard of when I was in the service).
There’s a lot of lore surrounding MREs… Three lies in one… combining various ingredients to make everything from hooch to pudding… it’s even rumored that knowing the number of holes in an MRE crackers is a screening question used to get grunts through promotion boards ahead of pouges… but at the end of the day, it is what it is: a meal designed to spend most of its life on the shelf and still be edible regardless of the conditions it will be exposed to before ending up in your gut.
Thanks for the memories!
I have to admit that one of my favorite dates was with a former boyfriend who, upon arriving at my home one evening, handed me an extra set of his army fatigues, dog tags and boots for me to wear. As curious as I was to know of his plans, I simply took them and headed off to my bedroom to change.
After glacing at my GI Jane appearance in the mirror, I walked back into the livingroom, where he had moved all the furniture to one side and had placed a blanket on the ground. We were having MREs for dinner. And yes, for we civilians, this first taste was actually an exciting event. I was lucky enough to get the Chicken Kieve and it was surprisingly tasty.
Who ever thought that hermedically sealed chicken would produce one of my fondest memories.
MRE´s arent that bad, I enjoy one everytime I can get my hands on one, but yes, they are pricey!.
pork and beans…hmmmm beans.
Ahhh
Looks better than those we had in the Singapore Army
How heavy is each packet of MRE?
And one packet constitute one meal?
I made a similar post on my blog several years ago documenting Chicken A La King.
I, however, very much enjoy MREs. To each their own, I guess.
I don’t recall anything included in my MRE’s for heating things up (1980-1985) however we managed just fine by allowing the Main course to simply sit out in the sun. Even on cooler days allowing your MRE to sit directly in the sun a few minutes prior to eating made it warm by the time you opened it. I even enjoyed most of the MREs I got and the only ones I didn’t like were the same foodstuffs that I wouldn’t eat normally.
You think THAT MRE was bad? Try the Omlette! Then again, I was graced with a company commander who believed that the heaters gave you cancer if you inhaled the fumes so we were not allowed to heat MREs. After awile they start to taste better when cold…except for the omlette and clam chouder!
lolz.. i tot it was del.icio.us
anyway nice cooking idea
Hahah. MREs. Holy shit that takes me back.
MREs are quite interesting and neato when you’re in basic training and having time to eat anything without stuffing your face and trying to get out of the mess hall is preferrable.
C-Rations sucked ass compared to MREs, but essentially, when I was in Bosnia, I ate with the French troops there instead of trying to stomach an MRE. The French, no matter where they are stationed, get awesome food. Fuckers.
After eating these things for over 18 years, I certainly can’t complain about the ones we have now. Some of them are actually quite good, while others are the ones you throw to the little Iraqi kids running after the vehicle. (Nope, never once threw out a pork patty, but wanted to).
Did you mention that if you eat them long enough, the ole plumbing gets backed up and then there’s hell to pay?
Not very appetizing — makes me want to bake homemade cookies and breads to send over to all our folks in the armed services.
In all actuality they really aren’t that bad. There are vegetarian ones also and those are usually the tastiest. Also some of them come with pound cake and jolly ranchers and other stuff. They also usually have some sort of drink mix usually cocoa or orange drink. Not too bad in a canteen mix. Just FYI
I’ve had some that are quite good. Better start stocking up for the end of the world.
Yeah… I had those with scouts a few times cause we had connections to a guy in the military. I’ve never had the mint pound cake, but I do remember the peanut butter being excellent. It was downhill from there. Glad people are willing to eat this stuff.
As a 1956-58 Marine Corps member, We had the old C-rats. Canned goods left over from WWII no shit. printed right on the cans 1945. Good lord sausage and gravy yuck. came with five sheets of toilet paper a stale pack of Luck Strikes or Camel’s. a pack of gum. a bridk of hot choclate (would not disolve) a crumbly choclate candy bar and a can of steno. Actually had two cans of food for two meals. always traded for pork and beans when I could, hard to mess them up. but good post any thanks
I’m an Army Brat born and raised Dad used to bring home MREs from the field and we( my sisters and I) LOVED them back in the day they had all sorts of candy and dehydrated strawberries ahhh those were the days.
A guide to Eating MRE…………Nice
I always enjoyed the cheese tortellini…and if you could get someone to trade you so that you had both P,B &J, you had a great meal! I’d give away that nacho cheese every time for some jelly. And you can have my Skittles too.
My dads friend from church who is in the army gave us some of these to try I didnt get one but my sibilings who tried them thought they were gross. My brother who likes spicy stuff loved the little bottle of tabasco sauce he thought it was the coolest.
yes we had some mre’s for the katrina situation
The rice didnt look too bad, but the mushroom and beef looked horrible.
I always thought the c-rats were a lot better. Some of the main courses were lousy, but we never opened up a 3 year-old meal to find green, decaying meat, nor a dessert package that had “popped” due to having rotted because it had not been properly sealed. When the “Meals-Rejected-by-Ethiopians” first came out, we rounded up all the c-rats we could find, and stashed then away, ensuring about a 10-year supply. A number of my buddies got violently ill from eating MREs only a year or 2 old. This never happened with c-rats, even when they were 30 years old!
Besides, MREs never came with “smokes.”
MMMMM…MMMMM…gotta love those MRE’s. The one that I hated the most was that dang ham slice and the chunked and formed meatloaf wasn’t all that great either. To be on the safe side I always went with the vegetarian choices. The veggie crackers weren’t all that bad, but that brownie could weigh in your stomach for a week.
very interesting. my boyfriend is always telling me about the MRE’s he has to eat and he hates them. i have never seen one in person and always wondered what they consisted of. thanks for showing me!
Love those MREs, ahahha! I remember my parents bought some MREs once and at that age, it was such a novelty for me (water in the pack and your food heats up!). Now to think about it, yeah, some of the food was pretty disgusting.
As a CAP cadet in 1991, I ate two MREs a day for a week during a summer activity called PJOC. We were kept so active that we were exceedingly grateful to have the food. I don’t recall a chemical heater, but if we had a fire, we’d sometimes make ranger brownies, not to be confused with the ranger cookie. Ranger brownies consisted of crumbled crackers, cocoa powder, creamer, sugar, and water, mixed into a gloppy mess and cooked to your liking. Somehow I thought it was tasty.
For an entree, you couldn’t beat ham slices. And for a non-ranger dessert, they had some kind of dehydrated orange-cranberry cake. Yum.
If you marvel at the small amount of toilet paper each meal provides, eat them every day for a week, and you’ll understand. There’s no need.
Del.i.cio.us!
I understand the sentiment in your post - it’s hard for packaged food to be good at all. However, they have to feed a lot of you for not too much. And if what you said is true, the army is paying for more than the actual meal - napkins, flameless heater, etc.
My grandfather always talked about the rations from WWII. At least they’ve upgraded since then.
The entire meal is zapped with radiation after sealing to further kill off any living microbes left in the well-processed food. They were also designed to meet the nutrition needs (1 a day) of a soldier in battle conditions where there are no messing facilities or where they are not practical. Some of the meals are very tasty and would even bring ‘twofer’ trades. All in all, one of the most complete systems that do what was intended…
Thanks,
Scott
I love that the heating instructions have the packet propped up on an object labeled “ROCK OR SOMETHING”. The “or something” never fails to crack me up.
Ha-ha
Great post.
Oh, the memories
I miss the sausages (I amuse myself)
This story got me - gotta love life: -
thesurvivorrv Says:
March 25th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Thanks for the memories!
I have to admit that one of my favorite dates was with a former boyfriend who, upon arriving at my home one evening, handed me an extra set of his army fatigues, dog tags and boots for me to wear. As curious as I was to know of his plans, I simply took them and headed off to my bedroom to change.
After glacing at my GI Jane appearance in the mirror, I walked back into the livingroom, where he had moved all the furniture to one side and had placed a blanket on the ground. We were having MREs for dinner. And yes, for we civilians, this first taste was actually an exciting event. I was lucky enough to get the Chicken Kieve and it was surprisingly tasty.
Who ever thought that hermedically sealed chicken would produce one of my fondest memories.
“when you use the heater, did you leave it upright or at an angle? If you have it inclined, then the entire main course is heated up.”
I always put more water in the heater than recommended and it got the entire meal hot… really quickly. It is also good on very cold winter days to heat up your hands but like the op said, be VERY careful or you will get burned. There aren’t many cold days down here in South Louisiana but during the hurricane MREs were widely consumed but many folks, our agency had many cases of them.
My husband in the AF, so we’ve tried a few MRE’s. I had the chicken breast with “seasoning packet”. Yeah, it was horrible. My husband had the shrimp gumbo, and LOVED it. Really, ew. Great post though, well done!
I’ve never been in the armed forces, but I’ve eaten plenty of MREs. Even though it’s been a few years, I don’t remember much about it, except the awesome way you heat up the main course. I even saved all of my little tobasco bottles. Still have then somewhere, as well as the coffee and flavored drink mixes.
Oh yeah. I wouldn’t eat an MRE unless it was the last thing on Earth. Well, maybe even the next to last thing.
You left out the most important aspect of how to eat an MRE. Even though the tear off indents on the main course are designed to tear off to leave the pouch deep rather than long it is best to tear or cut the packet lengthwise. The spoon is just long enough to reach the bottom of the pouch if eaten as intended however you end up with your fingers in the food eventually. Torn lengthwise there is plenty of extra length to the spoon and you are able to scoop out all of that yummy goodness from the bottom of the pouch.
I had one for lunch today actually. I got the chicken and rice with a delicious chocolate covered oat/honey/other bar and dried fruit punch mix. Everything was great except the cheese was quite sub-par. They’re only expensive if you buy 1 at a time. you can get both cases for about 50 bucks, thats between 2 and 3 dollars each.
I still think the French MREs are better. The best was we used to each get MREs when we were out in the field -but everyone brought in their own stuff anyways, plus all the officers had their stuff cooked separately so they would collect up the MREs unopened and bring them home to the dogs…
[:-]
I had a meatloaf and mashed potatoes MRE. My brother let me try one but gave me the crappiest one he had. Needless to say, it tasted like crotch sweat. The potatoes tasted like cardboard and the meatloaf was kinda just “there.”
Personally, I love them and eat them all the time. They were really great after Hurricane Rita ripped through my town. No lights for 6 weeks=not too many ways to cook. But we’ve been eating them for years before that.
I liked to heat up a packet of MRE peaches, add a crumbled cracker and a sugar packet for a MRE peach cobbler.
BTW, has anyone done the 2-minute challenge with the MRE crackers (try to eat both crackers in 2 minutes without drinking any water)? I failed miserably.
Let’s see if I’m right MRE’S ARE FOR SURVIVAL. Intended to keep your silly ass alive to fight another 6-7hours and kill Muslims/Iranians>Al Quiada/ali babbas? These are not supposed to replace dinning a Spago’s in Beverly Hills, or Grill 23 & Bar in Boston.
These restaurants, (In good Ol’Boy Speak) are “Real Fancy Denny’s wif no pit-churs on de menu. An all the words are in a funny language. Em Waiters are dressed in fancy funeral home suits and R real nasty as they charge ya 6 x’s what you should pay for an ok meal.”
If you want good food for camping, I suggest you take your motor home or camper and pack the best you can buy anc koook it! Other option is stay and the Best and fancy Hotel(Hiltons of Hyatt) closest to the woods. Come home every night to the motel, shower, change, and get some really good grub.
Dennydedrivr says try it and check-it-out.
Nothing as tasty as MRE’s after a month in the field eating LRP (pronounced LURP)rations. LRP’s were glorified compressed ramen noodles. Packed hard and tight as a brick, they nourished us on long range patrols, hence the ‘LRP’ nomenclature. When you couldn’t carry anything else due to weight, LRP’s were it. At least they were better than grubworms. The biggest problem was finding the water to re-hydrate them.
MRE’s tasted like fine dining when we would get back to our base camp. We used to joke, the only thing that would survive a nuclear war would be cockroaches and LRP’s. That was as long as they cockroaches knew better than to eat the LRP’s.
Good Times…..
*applauds*
Just to shed some insite, the beef and mushrooms have also been made in the year 2003, 04, 05, and 06. You can go to http://www.mreinfo.com/mre-menus.html for a somewhat accurate discription. I just ordered 26 cases and have prooved a couple of menus to be wrong including menu #1 which is not chili and beans but beef and mushrooms. I donno what happend to your MRE, it looks like vomit soup. Mine was an actual beef patty (one piece) in gravy with mushrooms and was very good. I have been eating them for about a week now. Just tring all 24 of them.
Forget the heaters, spoons, and froo-fraw. Cut a corner and suck it out like toothpaste.
It benefits everyone. Companies get larger growth, and people can put food on their plates. I see no harm here…
nd4cpd98xmi1nykg