2007 Cheese Tortellini oil leak

[argetni]

I just opened a 2007 Cheese Tortellini and the cardboard boxes were all stained with oil. Everything in the pouch was covered in oil. It seems to have come from the HooAH! bar that was in there. The packaging was not ripped and the bar seemed fine but it was VERY greasy and the bar smelled just like the grease all over every thing. I was only able to salvage the two meal pouchs and the crackers and PB, the M&Ms were covered in slime.

Has anyone else ever had this happen?

[housil]

Hello Argetni and welcomes to forums.

We had an "exploded" once before when a leaking pounch has started the FRH, but that´sthe only one I can remember.
I had spoiled/molded coffees from leaking tabasco bottles






too dark


little "crumbles" inside

Did you made some pic´s you can post?

[argetni]

Sorry to say I did not get any pics, but I am 99% sure it was the HooAH! bah that caused the issue.

[Apollo-11]

I have had the same thing happen. I had some civilian MREs (in clear outer wrap) stored in a plastic tote. I am not sure of the brand. The tote was stored in a corner of my basement. A couple of years went by, and I opened the tote up to a foul smell and a brown liquid in the bottom. One of the MRE entrees (don't remember which one, sorry) leaked and got all over everything. Over the course of months, it turned into a smelly rancid liquid.

I ended up throwing that whole MRE away, and cut off the clear outer wrap of all the remaining MREs and threw away the inner cardboard entree boxes (some had picked up a moldy smell). After washing the retort pouches in soapy water, almost everything else was salvageable. Since they were now suspect, I ended up eating that whole case on various camping trips soon afterward.

[rationtin440]

I'm curious; for those in forum who are from UK, Germany and other countries, and who have had military service, if you or any of your fellow servicemembers were hit with food poisoning from bad rations, do you know if there was any kind of special procedure by your unit to either get rid of the entire lot or somehow inspect each ration component to determine its fitness to eat? ( I realize this would be a very time consuming chore). If I remember correctly, the U.S. Army veterinary service was responsible for dealing with inspection and response to food-borne illness outbreaks.

[Treesuit]

rationtin440,

Yes, that is correct the Veterinary Service is responsible for all that and randomly inspecting MRE's when they are in those huge storage facilites. I think we did have a thread on this topic sometime ago.

[Cracker]

Yep, there still are quite a few diarrea outbreaks, but not really by spoiled rations, more because of pore hygiene:

- people open stuff like liver pate, jelly etc.. and leave it opened in the box for a full day (warm weather)
- use poor hygiene on their hands while eating (sometimes you simply can't eat hygienicly in the military..)
- use nasty pocket knives to open or eat food..
- leave powdered (ofcourse dissolved) drinks in your canteen for a whole day during warm weather.. (sugar+badly cleaned canteen+warmth+bacteria= nice microbiological party)

Once in a while cracker spreads like hazelnutpaste, meat and tuna spread, cheesespread etc opens a bit.. and people have the opinion "that's nothing wrong with it.. I 'll eat it"

But no serious large scale problems that I know off..
But getting the shits is quite common during your first 2 week basic training excercise..

I only heared of some botulism cases in older canned food (military and civilian).. that's the only very dangerous thing about old rats I think..

In all other cases, it's always your own fault.
And Yes.. rats can get spoiled.. but in 99,9% of the cases, the rat is so spoiled that it's clearly visible/smellable

[rationtin440]

Thanks for replies folks! I recall my uncle telling me about the metal canteens they were still issued during korean war and how easy it was to get sick if u did not clean your canteen good after using it for coffee or cocoa because bacteria also have a sweet tooth! He then proceeded to relate to me a truly frightening story about the consequences of cooking in the helmet after using it to soak the feet and not cleaning it out well last he saw of the guy he was being medevac'd and he did not look good.

[rationtin440]

This topic reminds me of something I read in the british rations section about canned cheese spread and quality issues relating to it "cheese, possessed" I think it mentioned that british troops called the stuff. I'm sure that as with many rations from other countries including ours, items in the rations might be substituted for other ones due to supply issues, but I'm curious to know if the cheese has been completely eliminated from the rations or if it is still issued.