Review of APack MRE - Chicken with Black Beans

[jjjjj]

Hello,
I thought I would submit a review of the aPack that I just ate as my first post. This is only the 4th MRE entre that I have ever eaten, and the second full meal. I did not eat this all at once, but throughout the day. This meal was date coded 6110, and has been in my cool basement since purchased late 2006 (I think).

I really do like the fact that the "Kit" included an itemized menu on the front visible through the package with the nutritional information on it, I am trying to eat only 1200 calories daily and this meal is 1180.

It included :
Fig Bar
I have not eaten this, and will not today, probably tomorrow.

Raisins, Osmotic
I refuse to eat these, they are quite bad. I did eat some previously when eating another aPack and will not again, they taste like rasins dipped in a parts washer. Inedible as far as I am concerned, they are all stuck together and dripping (literally) dripping preservatives. The ingredients are raisins, glycerol, and caprylic acid triglyceride. I have watched some of mrejap/Katomre's youtube videos and these aPack raisins do not have the same appearance as normal MRE raisins or of the raisins in Eversafes. They are really a solid block of raisins.

Cheese Spread
Seems to be standard MRE cheese spread, goes very well on the crackers.

Crackers
Normal MRE crackers, good crackers and crunchy.

Shortbread Cookie
I liked this cookie, it was crunchy and tasted good.

Squincher drink mix
Didn't drink this one, but I have had one before and they are very good, taste somewhat like Hawaiian Punch. Has a ton of vitamin c in it.

Pepper
Spoon
Really big spoon.

Towelette
I looked again, and I think this was missing from my "kit"

FRH (that uses salt water)
Worked as intended, got the meal nice and hot.
packet of salt water
Nice to have to activate the FRH, and worked fine as stated.

Chicken with Black Beans and Rice entre
This was fantastic, had I not eaten at Red Lobster this past weekend, this entre would have been the best thing I have eaten in at least a month, probably longer. The chicken in it was a shredded chicken, with very good texture for something that came out of a bag. I was surprised at how much chicken was in this, it is the second ingredient only after water. This really reminded me of a stew more than anything else, but is really a good choice of combination, it also has corn, garlic, and onion in it. It was somewhat bland when I took the first bite, but a bit of tabasco made it really great. I am going to try to replicate this at home in the crock pot, that is how good it was. I did also dump the pepper packet in, made it even better.


If I was in charge of Ameriqual, I would add to this : Tabasco (and really to all MREs), coffee, and edible raisins. I would remove only the inedible raisins.

As a side note, another review of an aPack mentions that it had a low sodium content, this entre did as well. The entre has only 20% of the recommended amount of daily sodium. It was also obtained less than 30% of its calories from fat, having only 8 grams.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, maybe some other time. I should add that my experience with these aPacks is very positive, the Spaghetti that I tried a while back was also very good, better than any canned spaghetti I have ever had.

Oh, and as long as I am thinking about this, thanks to mrejap/Katomre for making all of those youtube videos, this is what got me interested enough to join this website.

[German_EPA]

welcome in the forum jjjjj

[Jpak]

yo jjjjj...did I read this correctly in your review that you're trying to eat only 1,200 calories a day? That's kinda low...unless you want to lose a lot of weight?

[jjjjj]

Yea, thats the idea. It seems to work well, 55 lbs so far. I ate the fig bar yesterday from that MRE. It was also good, it looked exactly like two of the larger Fig Newtons that I used to have years ago. The ends were a little crunchy, but it still was very good.

[dirtbag]

55 pounds!
How long have you been doing this???
Does your Doctor know ???

[Jpak]

55 lbs??? Holy Crap! Who knew you could actually LOSE weight by eating MREs. So, you're only eating one MRE a day? Wow! How long have you been doing that for?

[jjjjj]

No, I haven't been exactly eating one MRE per day, just the same amount of calories (at least of the aPacks anyway). Yea, probably not the best idea really, I don't know, and like all of the commercials say you should, I didn't talk to my doctor. I did get ideas from MREs though, I have been eating pop tarts for breakfast and I got that idea from another aPack toaster pastry. Also the single coffee mixes in MREs gave me the idea, you can get the taster's choice single coffee packets at the grocery store cheaply. I do have a bunch of MRE snacks that I eat sometimes too, easy to sit in the desk without refrigeration.

For the most part I haven't had any issues with it, it is easy to do after the first few weeks. Interesting to see that I can exist on one MRE daily, or even less without too much trouble for an extended period, at least while I have a large "reserve".

[Bypah]

wow...interesting!!
But you have to be careful....

[Garron]

Sounds almost like a crash diet... cutting calorie intake dramatically. I'd be very careful as from experience crash dieting means you will just put the weight back on quite quickly too once you go back to the normal ammount of calories.

Be careful as theres a couple of nasty side effects of that...thats the reason why I stopped.

Gaz

[housil]

Be careful as theres a couple of nasty side effects of that...thats the reason why I stopped.

Gaz

What?
Getting hungry?!