[JustinHEMI]

This is a repost of a thread I made at poofa, regarding an MRE I tried after a year of temperature abuse at PA extremes.



So a little over a year ago, I built my get home bag and successfully tested it out by getting home from work with it.

The only meal in the bag is the contents of one modern military issued MRE. Those are nothing new to most folks here, but I was interested in how it would hold up after a year of sitting in my truck, up to 10 hours a day, in all the extremes of temperatures..., from below freezing to over 100F in my truck. I know they're good for five years or so when stored properly, so I wanted to see what happens after a year of not being stored properly.

So today, for the first time in a year, I unpacked my ghb and prepared the MRE for dinner.

First, I never used one of those heaters before since I tossed it out for weight savings last year. Holy cow, this thing is slicker than cat shit. Just a few table spoons of water and 10 minutes later, my meal was piping hot.

While the main dish cooked, roast beef with vegetables, I ate the spiced pound cake and chocolate peanut butter. The cake was a bit crumbly, so I plastered the butter all over it to hold it together. Delicious, it was still mostly moist and the butter was as if I just bought it at the store. I also ate the raisins and they too were as if I just bought them. Tasty.

Then for the main meal, there were no funny smells and it looked fine. Tasted great and I haven't died or gotten the runs so far.

So I feel better about abusing an MRE for a year in my ghb. I'll probably just continue switching it out every year, but at least now I know it'll hold up for at least that, probably more.

Justin

[bac0nfat]

Good to know! I actually enjoy MRE's, I've eaten over a whole case of them.

[JustinHEMI]

Yeah they aren't bad at all. I bought another case recently and had to break on out for dinner one night.

Justin

[mtbkski]

I have a couple cases of MRE's laying around just in case. Trust me, compared to the old C-Rats, MRE's are wonderful.

I also carry one in my GHB in the car. Just something to keep me energized while on foot if it comes to that.

The heaters also impressed me. If any of you haven't tried cooking with one, you really should. They work way better than I expected.

One meal actually comes with so much food that it can be spread out over the course of a day almost to keep your body energized. When I first started using them, we took them backpacking and thought we had to eat an entire me for every meal. Talk about being super stuffed. We learned that even hiking hard with a 30-40lb pack, that one for breakfast would last us most of the day with just a bit of snacking.

[glock19girl]

We had one laying around for 10 years, I took it camping this summer and we opened it up for the heck of it. Chicken ala king.
Oh and if yours came with one of those brown spoons those things
are awesome. I used to keep them in the trailer.

[Pa.Bill]

That was a great test.
I have MRE's. Its good to have different types. For me, I feel LRPR's are better.
Will last 15-20-25 years.
Easy- light to carry. Just add water, hot or cold, and they taste
like a real meal.
To get the longest life out of any of them, I store in a cool,
dry, dark place.
~BEST~
BILL------------------------->

[Last Resort]

Even though they have gone up (substantially) in price, I still think that MREs are GREAT food preps as they have great shelf life and lots of calories.

[RandomTask]

I kept MRE's in my emergency Pelican case in my Land Rover until I sold the truck last April. I'd occasionally rotate them, but some would be 3 years old before I ate them. The only thing I had that got weird was be the cheese spread. Everything else was delish. I still have some in the Pelican case, which is now sitting in the basement. I'll break one out sometime in the next week and give a full report.

PS: avoid the omelette. That thing is scary even when it's brand new. It's one of the few MRE items that absolutely sucks ass.

[steamtownwelder]

I subsisted solely on 2 varietys of mre and cases of pickled pe ppers for a month or so . worst shits ever but 2 a day was enough for the medium amount of physical exertion during that period. Some meals came with bad 'smoothie' thing drinks that had to be tossed.

[Cherokee60]

Just picked up a few cases of self-heating GI MREs...haven't tried them yet, but if they're even slightly better than our old C-Rats, they'll be terrific.

Anybody ever have the old-style bacon and eggs? Ick-and-a-half.