MREs

[BeaverEater]

they have new MRE's out that we finally got that are tagged SF on the box. Not sure if you can buy them yet but the chicken and dumplings is by far the best one made so far. And i will never buy any. Ive eaten about 200 in the last 2 months....

[devildog]

the ravioli one was the best back when i was in, as far as a whole package is concerned anyway. as far as individual meal, id have to say the tortellini was pretty good when you put the seasoning in it. and of course drown everything in tabasco. thank god it came with it.

[Eagle]

I'm not looking to buy them for regular consumption, I want them for emergency rations incase the feces hits the rotating ocillator. IE I want stuff that I can keep in my car for extended periods.

[devildog]

/paranoid?

lol, j/k

they have civilian versions that you can buy in just about any camping store.

[Pzippy]

Question: Does the army make vegetarian MREs? I'd think they'd have to, but I'm just thinking and posting here...

[rifleman wi]

Question: Does the army make vegetarian MREs? I'd think they'd have to, but I'm just thinking and posting here...

they do some are good, except the breakfast one...

[devildog]

yes, the tortellini i mentioned above is one of them. its cheese tortellini. actually, the vegie ones usually come with better stuff, veg crackers with peanut butter, m&ms, and a nice pound cake for desert.

[kenndogg]

I loved the tuna pasta one. Hated the ham...it was just a block of ham...wtf??

[Skoad]

Ebay has them quite often. Can sometimes snag them for $60 shipped a case if your lucky. They usually post the expiration date as well. Just have to watch out because some of the places will sell the non packaged kind where they don't come sealed in the original MRE brownsack and just come in like a ziplock bag. Go for the sealed cases.

And very rarely you can get the arctic MREs (forget the actual name) that are meant for extreme cold conditions, they are always super expensive though. Canadian IMPs show up every once ina while, usually not by case but just by entre or side items. Believe i've seen some british ones as well.

Of course there are consumer brand MREs but they aren't as cool as official military ones

edit: if you don't want to by case at a time you can find a few soldiers here and there selling them like 2-3 at a time, leftover from an excercise or people buying cases and just reselling the entres they dont' care for. Sometimes they have dates, others not. I recommend by the case though.

[ta2maki]

Question for the older guys: How do the MREs compare to the C-Rations? I knew an army grunt when I was a kid and he would give me c-rats every once in a while. He would show me how to make a stove out of the cans so you could heat the food. I remember them to be delicious, although the cool factor had something to do with it.

On a side note, do they still have little can openers? I think they were called p38's.

[Skoad]

of course the p38 is still around however its not needed for modern day mre's

Taste wise between c-ration and modern I'm not sure about. Modern's side items and conidments/drinks n such are great. Entre's seem to be a crapshoot (i mean that both ways ). I personally enjoy about all of them I've had, cool-factor does help as you've said.

[devildog]

c-rations are horrible. mre's blow them away. if you ever have to eat c-rats god help you.... (did my first deployment in 03 and had nothing but c-rats, i didnt **** right for a year)

[Recon by Fire]

I'll have to pass on the MRE's, even T-rats are better. You guys are all talking the new fancy stuff anyway, how about a nice old pork patty (pork flavored Styrofoam more like it)?

[slateman]

Expiration dates are communist propaganda. Theyre still good.

Pretty much. I had MREs that were about 3 years over their date at MCT. They were still . . . ummm . . . not good, but, like, I didn't die of food poisoning . . .

Eagle, for emergency use, you could leave them in your car for years and there wouldn't be a problem (unless it gets really, really cold. And even then, you just gotta thaw it out).

But don't sit there and heat a whole box of them. First off, they're, at least, 1200 calories a pop. And they make 2000 calorie versions. An MRE can last you for three days if you need it to.

Second, they have a little side effect. Its called constipation. If you eat a lot of them, you get plugged up. I had them for 18 days straight. I dropped a duece five times. Yea, five times in 18 days :spit_take And the first two were within the first 4 or 5 days.

When I got back to the rear (no pun intended), I got real food and a real toilet. That chow went through me so fast, it cleared everything in its way. Unfortunately, having been so constipated, let's just say it was a painful experience. Actually, I'm fairly confident I know what women go through during childbirth . . .

[Eagle]

I'm not concerned about the cold with these, it's the heat in the car during the summer peak. Any potential problems there? that said, I just want a few meals worth, i don't intend to eat them for long term, and then only if i have too. I've eaten them before, so I know the digestive consequences