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So today begins another crazy MRE experiment. My wife is out of town for the week so I thought this would be the perfect time for my longest MRE eating test yet. The goal is to eat nothing but MREs for the next week. A soldier in the field might be expected to eat three MREs a day but I'm a civilian who doesn't get out enough so I'm going to stick to two MREs a day.

I've done 3 days in a row before but never a whole week. In the past, I've taken these opportunities to dig all the old MREs out of my car, the garage, etc - places where I had then stashed away and places where they were subject to temperature extremes. I figured it'd be a good chance to see how the MREs held up. In my previous experience, I found that even a four year old MRE kept in a hot/cold/hot/cold car for two years still tasted perfectly good.

So this time I decided to crack into my newest case of MREs instead of eating through my old stock. This way, I could try the newer MREs and components. The case I'm eating through was packed on 05/12/2004 and is a case B.

Day 1: Sunday dinner: #20 - Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

I was happy to find the cheese spread in the MRE because it goes great with the spaghetti. But I was left with a condundrum...what to put on the wheat snack bread? I decided to cheat (so early and I'm already cheating) and grabbed an extra peanut butter packet I had laying around. I opened up the wheat bread and was surprised to find it looked different than the last wheat snack bread I had seen. The previous version I had was more like a square with a lot of little holes in it. This new version was the same thickness but was actually shaped like a real slice of bread. It's kind of funny because this stuff doesn't have any relation to real bread - maybe they just shaped it this way to make you think it was just like mom made. But I do have to say that this stuff has improved! The taste is much better than I've had in the past - I can't quite describe it - it's not like soft bread but it's also not like hard bread...it's kind of soft/hard/chewy/compressed bread.

Anyway...after chowing down on my wheat snack bread and peanut butter appetizer, I got my main course ready. I opened up the spaghetti box, took out the entree, put it in the heater. This is where I thought I was being smart. You see, with the older heaters, you'd put the water in, slosh it around a little to get the heater element wet, then stuff everything in the entree box to let it cook. But the last time I tried that with a 2004 heater, I was in for a surprise - these new heaters are fast! No sooner had I sloshed the water around before it started fizzing and heating up - it was a bear to get the entree stuffed back into the box because the heater was filling up with steam. So like I said...this time I thought I was being smart. I put the entree in the heater, put water in the heater, folded the top of the heater over, and stuffed everything in the box. *Then* I sloshed the water around and heard the pleasant sound of the heater going to work. So I left the contraption propped up on "a rock or something" and went away. 10 minutes later I returned only to find my MRE only mildy warm and with a big wet spot on the bottom side of the box. Yes, instead of folding the top flap of the heater over the top of the entree, I folded it over on the bottom...so when I sloshed the water around, it just started leaking out the bottom and didn't generate much heat.

Ashamed of myself for this rookie mistake, I put some more water in the heater, folded it over the *right* way this time...and stuck the cheese spread in the bottom of the box so it could get heated up, too. 10 minutes later supper was ready. Open entree, dump in salt, dump in tobasco, dump in cheese spread and yum! Cheesy hot spaghetti!

For my post-supper drinking pleasure, I had the strawberry dairy shake. I don't know #1 - how they expect you to actually use the shake packaging to mix up the drink and then #2 - actually drink the shake with only 6 ounces of water - wow...talk about some concentrated strawberry dairy shake! Not me this time...I took a regular glass, put in 10 ounces of water (could have done it with 12-16), poured the shake mix in, and then stirred it for a while. It was pretty good - kind of like drinking a slim fast or something similar (but with a lot of sugar and caloies).

This MRE also had carbohydrate fortified Applesauce but I decided to hold off on that for now...might have it for breakfast another day.

LOL, I love it Kman...very funny reading. I love your rookie mistake with the heater and your cheating, using a glass...NO NO NO, you always get on my azz when I use a microwave to heat my rations up and you use a glass? Probably an old Star Wars one from a gas station that you got when you filled up your car with $15 or more at the local Mobil...LOL!

I tell you this, it has to be dang hard to eat three full MREs a day. I ate crackers with PB, chicken with cavatelli and pasta and vegetables and I was full for like 10hrs. I just don't see how you can eat more than two MREs a day.

Well, I look forward to each days review of what you have eaten, it makes for fun reading.

Whats the longest amount of time you guys have eaten mres for? And what about the health risks of doing so?

Dogger - for me, the longest has been three days...but I'm working on fixing that right now.

I'm not sure what I can say about the health risks about long-term eating of MREs. I've read at least one study from the mid-1990s that recommended soldiers not be on MREs for more than 10 days at a time - but seeing as soldiers during Gulf War I were on them for 30+ days, I think they started reworking the nutritional content of the MREs so they could recommend a longer period. The new recommended period (I read) was three weeks...but of course soldiers are still eating them for 30+ days.

Day 2: Monday lunch: #22 - Jambalaya

Also known as "Ham and Shrimp Jambalaya", this was my lunch. After my meager breakfast of coffee, followed by another serving of coffee, I was ready for some real food. I wasn't exactly looking forward to this particular entree because I'd tried it once before and thought it was so-so. I'm not a big fish (or shrimp) fan so the seafood taste wasn't too appealing to me. But this was my lunch and like it or not, it was going into my belly.

The heating process went much more smoothly this time - open bag, insert entree, insert water, close it up, lean it against a "rock or something" (in this case a computer mouse) and wait. While I was waiting, I perused the other contents of the bag. Woohoo...I was in luck today...I got another cheese spread - jalapeno cheese spread this time - and another wheat snack bread. Check out the pic below of the wheat snack bread - see the fake loaf-of-bread look:



I've always had peanut butter with my snack bread so this will be a change. But I went ahead and put about half the cheese on the bread and gave it a whirl. Pretty good stuff! That wheat snack bread is getting better and better!

About the same time I polished off the cheesy bread, the room started reeking of the familiar fumes of an FRH doing it's business. I checked the entree and it was plenty hot. So I cracked it open, dumped in the salt, dumped in the tobasco, dumped in the other half of the jalapeno cheese spread, and the results can been seen below:



Have you seen those pics of MREs that people take where they have the contents of the MREs all arranged on a plate? Heck...you can find some of those pics on my site. But I didn't take those - I just borrowed them from a Japanese web site (thanks guys!). Oh no...if I'm going to take MRE pics, I'll take them like they really look to someone eating them...not nicely arranged on a plate but still in their cozy little retort pouches.

This leads me to first theory of MREs: MREs taste better when you can't see them. You don't *really* want to take a close look at that MRE, do you? Just season it up, shovel it in, and let your stomach be the judge. Laying it out on a plate for people to stare at just tempts them to say, "What the hell is that?!" Heck...just by taking this close photo with a flash, I'm doing MREs a disservice by exposing them to the bright light of day. But I decided you guys could probably handle the ugly truth of what's really in an MRE pouch.

Back to lunch...I mixed all that stuff up and dug in. Yum! It was pretty good. I don't know what the big difference was from last time - maybe this time it was hotter (=better when you're dealing with rice entrees) or maybe it was the cheese spread - but this was pretty darn tasty.

Dessert was the lemon poppyseed poundcake. Right after I took my entree out of the FRH, I put the poundcake pouch in there to soak up the extra heat. It was pretty good all nice and warmed up.

I also had a bag of skittles in my MRE bag but I was already stuffed from everything else so I saved these for later.

Oh yeah...one more note - another MRE first for me that I've heard about from others...when I opened the accessory pack, I smelled the sharp odor of tobasco - almost as if the little tobasco bottle had leaked. I couldn't find any errant tobasco sauce and the bottle itself seemed all sealed up. But the bottle also looked about 1/3 empty. I don't know how the stuff leaked out, but that seems to be what happened. Must be more QA issues at the factory.


Day 2: Monday dinner: #18 - Beef Roast with Vegetables

So here's how I pick which MRE to eat next...I reach into the box without looking and pick one. Real complicated system I have there, eh? Tonight's dinner turned out to be another new entree for me - Beef Roast with Vegetables. Altogether, there was beef roast, pineapples, crackers, jalapeno cheese spread, and a toffee crunch cookie.

I was a little surprised by the cheese spread. Previously, it seemed to be a rarity when I got the cheese spread in an MRE so getting two in a row was a pleasant surprise. I just checked the 2004 menus and sure enough, 12 of the 24 menus have cheese spread in them now. In previous years (2001 at least), only 8 of the 24 menus had cheese spread. Cool...sounds like some of the favorites and being included more.

The crackers and cheese was pretty good. Here's my "crackers and spreads" system - break each cracker in two and then spread the cheese onto each of the four pieces. This actually makes it manageable eating-wise. You see, if I just spread the cheese on one big cracker, as soon as I take my first bite of the cracker, the whole thing would break up into about 10 different little pieces and in a struggle to keep them from all falling onto the floor, I'd end up shoving them all into my mouth. Not a pretty sight. With the four separate pieces, when the inevitable cracker breakup happens, at least I don't have to cram so much in.

The beef roast and vegetables was surprising. I guess maybe I was expecting something like the beef and mushrooms entree with the shredded beef but in this case, it looked like real roast. Check out the picture:



The taste was plenty good. I was a little disconcerted by the shapes of some of the vegetables - like the rectangular-shaped potatoes - but it tasted just fine when I didn't look at it too closely.

Dessert was the toffee crunch cookie. This might have tasted better (softer) if I had heated it up, too, but it was just fine like it was - one big ol' cookie.

Again, I passed on the pineapples - maybe they'll make a good breakfast in the morning.

Day 3: Tuesday lunch: #15 - Beef Enchiladas

Today's lunch proved to be quite a production. Normally, I'd heat the entree, dump in some spices, and start eating. But this beef enchilada meal was a lot more involved. This MRE also comes with refried beans so I took those out of the box and stuffed them into the entree box along with the entree and heater - it was a tight fit but I got it all in. Once it was all heated up, I dumped in the remaining half of the jalapeno cheese spread, the crushed red pepper packet, the picante sauce packet, and the refriend beans. I then stirred it all up and you can see the results below:

Beef Enchiladas by themselves:


Beef Enchiladas with 1/2 jalapeno cheese packet, picante sauce packet, red pepper packet, and refried beans mixed in:


See what I mean about MREs tasting a lot better than they look?

Taste-wise, it was great! It tasted about the same as the typical Speedy Gonzales $3.50 lunch special that I usually get at the local Mexican restaurant (two beef enchiladas, a taco, and refried beans). In fact, right now it's three hours since I ate it and I can still feel it sitting like a lump of refried goodness in my stomach - just like regular mexican food!

While lunch was cooking, I snacked on vegetable crackers and the first half of the jalapeno cheese packet. Dessert was a big ol' chocolate chip cookie (just like last night's toffee crunch cookie but this time with chocolate chips). There were also a couple of tootsie rolls.

Day 3: Tuesday dinner: #24 - Meatloaf with Gravy

This is one of favorite MREs next to Spaghetti. It took a little cramming, but I managed to get the mashed potatoes wedged into the entree box that already contained the heater and entree. While that was cooking away, I had some crackers with apple jelly. There really isn't enough jelly in those packets - they should include a second packet because what's there barely covers one cracker much less two.

Once everything was heated up, I opened up the meatloaf entree and chopped it up a bit. Then I added in the mashed potatoes, mixed it all up, added in the crushed red pepper, and dug in. Oh yes...this was definitely high up on my list of favorite MREs. The mashed potatoes were interesting. I don't know about the rest of you, but when I hear "mashed potatoes", I think of some kind of whipped, mashed potatoes. But these MRE potatoes clung true to their name - they were potatoes and they were mashed up - no extra butter or milk added - no whipping. They weren't bad at all - they were pretty good in fact - they just weren't exactly what I was expecting.

Here are some pictures:

Meatloaf and Gravy:


Meatloaf with potatoes mixed in:


Dessert was a "Vanilla Wafer Cookie" which was just like those little sugar wafer cookies you've seen. But this one was a giant wafer cookie the same size as an MRE cracker. It was very tasty and I could feel the sugar crystals crunching in my teeth. The cookie part of it didn't seem too crisp and made me wonder how it would fare over the years during storage.

Since I still had small spot in my stomach that wasn't stuffed full of food, I decided to break out the cocoa beverage powder and make some ranger pudding. I opened up the powder, dumped in the creamer, dumped in the sugar, added a little water, and then mixed it up until the was the consistency of frosting. Pretty good stuff...and definitely sugary!

You are making me hungry

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT EPISODE : KMAN -- Supersize me

Day 4: Wednesday lunch: #17 - Beef Teriyaki

My first thought when I opened up this MRE bag was, "Wow..what a feast!" It looked like a lot of food: beef teriyaki entree, chow mein noodles side, wheat snack bread, strawberry jam, shortbread cookies, and a bag of M&Ms.

While the main entree heated up, I dined on the wheat snack bread and strawberry jam. This jam is a lot easier to spread around than the apple jelly from yesterday - the jam is thicker and doesn't run off the bread. There was enough jam to cover the bread, but if it was crackers instead of bread, I'd want another pack of jam.

I always liked the older Pork Chow Mein MRE and was sorry to see it go. But at least they kept the chow mein noodles around. Once the entree was heated up, I opened it up and took a look (see pics below). I'm pretty sure I've had this entree in the past but I think they've made some changes to it. It looks like they've tried to make the "beef" more stir-fry looking - almost like they cut the beef into small strips. But they aren't fooling me...it's the same ol' MRE mystery meat (chunked and formed) shaped like stir-fried beef. The taste isn't bad - it's more like they took a beef steak MRE and cut it up. But once you throw in the noodles and tobasco sauce, it gets really good - I like the crunchy noodles and sweet teriyaki flavor.

Beef Teriyaki


Beef Teriyaki and chow mein noodles


I don't know what it is about these MREs...whenever I get done eating the main entree and side, I'm usually pretty stuffed and say to myself, "I'm pretty stuffed...I think I'll hold off on dessert." And that works for about as long as it takes my eyes to wonder over to where the dessert is laying and the next thing you know, I'm ripping it open and eating every last crumb.

Such was the case with the shortbread cookies. Before I opened the package, I noticed it was rattling quite a bit - almost as much as the chow mein noodles were rattling. And sure enough, once I opened it, I saw that of the 5 or 6 cookies in there, only one was still whole - the rest were all broken up. No big deal...just interesting. I also found that these weren't the girlscout-like shortbread cookies I was expecting but exactly like the Danish Butter Cookies you can buy at Wal-Mart during the holidays for $5 for a giant tub. They tasted great - fresh and crispy.[/u]

Day 4: Wednesday dinner: #14 - Vegetable Manicotti

So tonight was veggie-MRE night. Compared to the "feast" I had at lunch, this MRE was definitely on the "famine" side. The contents were vegetable manicotti entree, potato sticks, peanut butter, crackers, and lemon poppyseed poundcake. And oh yeah...dry roasted peanuts.

The manicotti itself was ok. It was like a giant cheese ravioli. I definitely liked it better than the old Pasta and Vegetables MRE and it was an improvement over the Beef Ravioli MRE (too much pasta in that one). But after the crackers, potato sticks, and manicotti, I wasn't feel completely full.

Another interesting thing I noticed about this MRE was that it didn't include any beverage base powders - just the iced tea mix in the accessory packets. And hey...I just checked out the menu listing for this MRE and it says it's supposed to include a wet pack fruit - but my MRE didn't have one. Oh well...maybe that explains why the amount of food felt so light.

Vegetable Manicotti