1978 Chicken or Turkey, Boned Meal, Combat, Individual Review

Reviews of other US rations - MCW, LRP, MCI, FSR, etc.
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SentientTootsieRoll
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1978 Chicken or Turkey, Boned Meal, Combat, Individual Review

Post by SentientTootsieRoll » Sun Oct 18, 2020 1:25 pm

In addition to the the MCI I reviewed last night (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=11503) I also ended up opening this one. The preface from that review also applies to this one. This is a 1978 Chicken or Turkey, Boned MCI produced by Con Pac, Inc.
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Here are the contents laid out on the tray.
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This MCI includes turkey, apple sauce, peanut butter, a B-3 unit and an accessory packet.

Speaking of the accessory packet, here's a look at it.
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As you can see, it just includes the standard components. The main difference is that it includes Beechies peppermint gum as opposed to the standard non-branded gum.

I was on the fence about heating the canned turkey up since the can was bloated. My fear was that it was going to build up pressure and potentially explode but I decided to put it in boiling water for just a few minutes.
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Here were the components in their cans just after opening them.
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And here's the entirety of the ration and a closeup of the turkey.
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Since face masks are pretty abundant these days, I decided to put one on before opening any of the cans. When I opened the canned turkey, I noticed a very audible "hiss" noise. While it smelled faintly like turkey, it also had a very metallic smell. My senses couldn't yell "NO!" any louder if they tried since the weird metallic/turkey smell almost made me gag. I couldn't bring myself to try even a small bite of it.

The chocolate toffee disks were actually somewhat tasty! If they had a cheap dollar store knock off of a Symphony chocolate bar, that's would it taste like. In the LRPs of the same age, these haven't held up well in my experience. They must last a lot longer if they are not exposed to air.

I couldn't even get all of the canned applesauce on the tray since a majority of it was basically stuck in the can. It had a bluish/green color to it and it felt a lot like old, wet coffee grounds. It even looks like that too! Given the soft texture of applesauce, I have no idea how it even turned into this. Maybe the MCI applesauce had a different texture to begin with.

The crackers and peanut butter all held up. These MCI crackers aren't really my favorite. Imagine if you took a slightly underbaked off-brand saltine cracker and made it stale. That's what these tasted like. The peanut butter wasn't oily which made it easier to spread on the crackers. I'm sure it was a welcomed addition back in the day.

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Militaryration_guy
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Re: 1978 Chicken or Turkey, Boned Meal, Combat, Individual Review

Post by Militaryration_guy » Thu Nov 12, 2020 2:13 pm

Looks like a bunch of cans full of botsulisam
A random hillbilly guy intrested in in military rations from across the world :arrow: :mrgreen: :arrow: :!: :?:

norge
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Re: 1978 Chicken or Turkey, Boned Meal, Combat, Individual Review

Post by norge » Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:40 am

i think most can food goes bad with the years, had civilian cans that also was bad as the military ones.
maybe the can lining desolves ? specialy seen this with tomato things since tomato is a sour thing.

like your review :D :D cheers ken

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Militaryration_guy
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Re: 1978 Chicken or Turkey, Boned Meal, Combat, Individual Review

Post by Militaryration_guy » Fri Nov 13, 2020 2:43 pm

norge wrote:
Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:40 am
i think most can food goes bad with the years, had civilian cans that also was bad as the military ones.
maybe the can lining desolves ? specialy seen this with tomato things since tomato is a sour thing.

like your review :D :D cheers ken
I know that back in the day they lined the cans with led so that could be why the lining of the can is broken down
A random hillbilly guy intrested in in military rations from across the world :arrow: :mrgreen: :arrow: :!: :?:

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Tedster
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Re: 1978 Chicken or Turkey, Boned Meal, Combat, Individual Review

Post by Tedster » Sat Nov 14, 2020 11:27 pm

Lead solder. Outlawed at some point right in that time period. Thing is, the lead seams are probably the only part that won't actually fail, other than the toxicity. There are different quality can linings available in cans, and the food will last a lot longer in the better quality linings. "Store brand" el cheapo canned items are the worst, they start leaking (relatively) soon. Peaches, tomatos, acidic foods. I'm pretty sure the MCI used a decent can lining per govt. spec, but 42 years was a long time ago. If they were stored climate controlled for the entire period, I wonder if they wouldn't be just fine. Not sure.

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