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It's been my goal for the past month or two to be conservative with my spending and that included dialing down the number of rations I am buying. While I've done well, something caught my eye on eBay a few days ago and that was a Food Packet: Long Range Patrol ration. I decided to order it because the price seemed right and I've never had one from this era before. This one happened to be a Spaghetti with Meat Sauce menu no. 3 produced by Dixie Packaging of Greenville, SC 29602. I don't know what year this was produced as I couldn't find any indicator on the packaging (I looked everywhere, I swear!). I'd hazard a guess that it was produced anytime in the late 70s to the early 80s. Any help on determining a date would be greatly appreciated, even if it's a rough guess.

Here's the ration. I noticed that it was a lot smaller than a standard MRE, or at least it seemed so. And the packaging wasn't as thick either. It felt like it had the consistency of a Ziploc bag. I measured its width and it came out to be roughly 10.5 inches. It's length is about 6.5 inches. Time to open it up! Here's the inside of the LRP upon opening: Here are the base components laid out: Closeup of the accessory packet, front and back: Here is the inside of the accessory packet upon opening it. You'll notice that the sugar is torn open, it did not come like that. It made its way up to the tear notch and I accidentally opened it when I tore open the accessory packet. Front and back of the accessory packet: Due to image limitations, this review will be continued below.

Here's an interesting find. This toilet paper looks like it was burned at some point. When I removed the entree from the outer packaging, another toilet paper was hiding inside of it: Here's the spaghetti with meat sauce entree: Inside of the entree packaging with the spaghetti enclosed: When I opened it, I noticed a really weird smell, for lack of a better word. I've smelled it before when I opened up a freeze dried potato patty from an early 80s MRE, so I didn't really think much of it. My assumption is that it was coming from the plastic. It's also worth noting that the plastic was a bit greasy.

Spaghetti from the top: And here's what it looked like flipped over: Here's what it looked like when I unraveled the packaging, prior to adding water: To be continued, once again...

Right after adding water: Great! While that's hydrating, I decided to prepare the coffee. I separated the coffee, creamer and sugar to give an idea of what they look like individually. I'm rather surprised at how well it looks.

And most importantly, here's everything! And a closeup of the candy: For posterity's sake, I'm going to list all the components in this ration.

- Freeze Dried Spaghetti with Meat Sauce
- 2x Toilet Paper
- White MRE Spoon
- Accessory Packet for Menu No 3. includes:
- 2x Coffee Instant Type I
- Creamer
- Sugar
- Matches
- 2x Candy, Chocolate Disk with Toffee, Enriched Sweet produced by the Wilbur Chocolate Co. Inc.

Overall thoughts: I'll start with the spaghetti, of course. When I added the water, I wasn't sure how much half a canteen cup was so I just estimated how much it would take and then I let it set for about 5 minutes. When I began to eat it, I was still getting dry chunks so I decided to add a bit more and I that helped a bit. This isn't much like the modern Oregon Freeze Dry spaghetti. In fact, the tomato flavor was less sweet and a little more rough. The beef had a lot of weird chunks in it, much like a beef stew bar I had from a 1989 RCW. I guess quality wasn't something they had in mind when they produced these. It also had very small bits of noodles and it didn't seem like there were very many. Overall, it certainly wasn't bad and it made for a fun experience but I'd take a modern day LRP of this menu any day over this one.

The cookie had that abundant strong, aged chocolate taste that I've seen in many rations of this era. While it won't make you sick, it may be a bit overpowering for some people. I didn't mind it and still enjoyed it. I couldn't really see the toffee chunks but I could definitely feel and taste them when I was eating it.

The coffee was great for cleansing the pallet and I was happy to see that the creamer had made it.

It's been about an hour since I finished eating this one so I'd say it was still fine, believe it or not. Would I consider my favorite ration of all time? No, not really. In fact, I like the modern LRPs a lot more because they don't only taste better but they include a lot more than just the entree, a few candies and some coffee. But this was still pretty fun nonetheless and I'm happy that they've improved it so much over the years.

Very nice review, thanks for sharing! It is always fun seeing what may, or may not, have lasted in a ration. My overall experience with older LRPs is that they've held up very well.

If it's a Dixie Packing Corp. LRP then it's probably from 1983. I had a similar LRP but Menu 1, Corned Beef Hash and reviewed it on my channel.

SentientToostieRoll,

Hey, quick question; do you remember the size of the chocolate candy disk? Just curious.

Thanks all. Today I woke up felt a bit achy, tired and my stomach wasn't feeling too well for the entire morning. I'm guessing it's because I ate this last night. I feel okay now but I'm going to be more cautious if I ever decide to eat one of these again. It may also be unrelated, I really can't say for sure.

Treesuit, I didn't get exact dimensions but I'd say it was about the size of my palm.

Thank you for the detailed review with great photos !

I don't know what year this was produced as I couldn't find any indicator on the packaging (I looked everywhere, I swear!). I'd hazard a guess that it was produced anytime in the late 70s to the early 80s. Any help on determining a date would be greatly appreciated, even if it's a rough guess

If it's a Dixie Packing Corp. LRP then it's probably from 1983.

When you study the photo with the accessory pack items you can see that one Coffee Instant Type I contains 2,5 grams, the other one 2,2 grams. That could be a clue for dating the Food Packet. The change from 2,5 grams to 2,2 grams happened about 1984 or 1985, so my suggestion is that the packet was packed in that abovementioned years.

mreheater72 wrote:Thank you for the detailed review with great photos !

I had to wipe my eyes!!!!!!
I´m happy to read you again!!!

mreheater72 wrote:Thank you for the detailed review with great photos !

I don't know what year this was produced as I couldn't find any indicator on the packaging (I looked everywhere, I swear!). I'd hazard a guess that it was produced anytime in the late 70s to the early 80s. Any help on determining a date would be greatly appreciated, even if it's a rough guess

If it's a Dixie Packing Corp. LRP then it's probably from 1983.

When you study the photo with the accessory pack items you can see that one Coffee Instant Type I contains 2,5 grams, the other one 2,2 grams. That could be a clue for dating the Food Packet. The change from 2,5 grams to 2,2 grams happened about 1984 or 1985, so my suggestion is that the packet was packed in that abovementioned years.

It's MREheater72!! It is great to see you - hope all is well! Thank you for all the amazing contributions of information - I miss your awesome posts. Thank you for all of the knowledge and inspiration.