“Meals Ready to Eat”: A Visual Guide to Military Rations
5 Comments Published by Joel March 26th, 2007 in Fighting, Food, Gadgets, Survival. Share This
The most famous quip about standard U.S. military ration M.R.E.s—”Meals Ready to Eat”—is that they’re “three lies in one.” In my experience they’re often surprisingly tasty, although the massive amount of calories in each meal will stack on the pounds if you’re not humping a 100-pound pack through the muck. If you’ve never had the pleasure of consuming one of the gut-stopping meals, this fellow has documented the contents of a “Beef and Mushrooms” bag.
I’ve heard that when the military used to issue metal canteens, the expanding chemical heater in an M.R.E. could be placed inside to cause the canteen to explode, making a handy noise-maker. I have no idea if anyone ever actually did that, but it’s a nice idea.
Man, now I’m hungry for some jalapeno cheese on a cracker. There’s something about putting food inside individual wrappers that makes it twice as fun to eat.
A Guide to Eating a Delicious MRE [FraudWasteAbuse.Wordpress.com]
MRE’s aint that bad. I would certainly take it over ship food (I have never before and never since had to put hot sauce on fucking chicken to make it taste good) But they are LOADED with calories. Usually we ate half for lunch half for supper and stashed any others we got someplace else for emergencies.
Current MRE’s are light years better than the first ones though. I was told those where like eating fucking cardboard.
Canteens? Who needs canteens to explode?
My 21 year old MPs have brought home a number of heaters, and have exploded numerous plastic bottles all over the yard. And not just after Basic either.
I have no idea if anyone ever actually did that, but it’s a nice idea.
It’s not just an idea. Trust me.
Don’t knock them till you’ve tried them, there not bad if your hungry. Oh and remember MREs are Meals Rejected by Ethiopians.
Always remember: eat the cheese on the way out and the peanut butter on the way back.
For those of us who are little longer in the tooth and who can remember the happy days of c-rations, the MRE is haute cuisine… even the first gen MREs. Ahh, I remember with fondness fucking around with the p-38 to get a can of beans and motherfuckers (green lima beans and ham slices), utterly tastless John Wayne crackers, the tooth shattering joy of the toffee candy, and trying to heat anything over a triox bar. And, if you ever found yourself a bit backed up, the spiced beef was better than anything to get things moving… Better remembered than lived.