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In the midst of feeling bored during my lunch break I decided to take a trip to a nearby army surplus store. Various 1989 RCW components along with 2 Canadian LMC rations followed me back. And if you can believe it, the price was actually agreeable. In particular, I scored two 1997 Canadian Forces Food Packet, Light Meal Combat (LMC) Menu No. 3 Cheddar Cheese rations. I'll keep the other in the collection for a while but I decided to open the other. Let's see what we've got going on here!
The contents include a Lowney Caravan bar, Quaker Dipps S'Mores bar, Butter Rum Life Savers, Cinnamon flavored apple chips, Hot Chocolate Mix, Orange Beverage Powder, Peach Beverage Powder, Freeze Dried Cheese, two beverage bags and a questionnaire about the ration.

At first, I was wondering how they managed to get cheddar cheese in a shelf stable ration. Then I felt stupid once I discovered that it was freeze dried. Apparently that's a technology that exists, why didn't it occur to me sooner?
I think moisture had gotten to the apples, they were soft and not crispy like they should have been so I passed on those. The Quaker Dipps bar was a bit rancid in the sense that my tongue was a bit numb after eating it. The taste was initially good but then a bitter rancid taste followed. I'm sure you can still buy this product in stores. The Lowney Caravan bar was the real elephant in the room for me since I'd never had or even heard of such a thing before. It's a caramel/vanilla bar covered in chocolate. The caramel was pretty hard but the chocolate taste was still present. It was okay but I'd like to have a fresh one. Unfortunately it appears it's no longer being produced.* The cheddar cheese was still good and I really enjoyed it. It was really filling and left me pretty thirsty after every few bites. If I had to equate it to something, the taste is very similar to the Extra Toasty Cheez-It crackers.

While thirst became an issue with the cheddar cheese, the peach and orange beverages were able to quench that. The orange tasted like Tang and I can't equate the peach drink to anything but since I love peaches and peach flavored things, it left me satisfied. The cocoa was almost exactly like the 80s MRE cocoa beverage base. The taste of the powder itself and mixed with hot water is identical. Naturally, I enjoyed it. As I type this, I am finishing off the butter rum Life Savers (which are a bit softened but still tasty) and the last bits of the hot cocoa, I'd say it was a pretty satisfactory ration considering that it served as my dinner for the evening. In a real world scenario, I imagine many of the components would be useful in any "on the go" situation.

*https://www.change.org/p/the-hershey-co ... -by-lowney

Was awesome seeing this. Caravan used to be my mother's favourite chocolate bar back in the day!

Interesting, I enjoyed it but I'd really like to try a fresh one. Speaking of good candy that is no longer produced, I really like Necco Wafers but was saddened to hear that they stopped making them a few years back. I live pretty close to the Canadian border and I often see travelers with Canadian license plates driving around so I wish there was market for Canadian grocery items around these parts. I guess I'll need to take a trip up there one day and see what other candy they have to offer.

SentientTootsieRoll wrote: ↑

Fri May 29, 2020 12:17 am

Interesting, I enjoyed it but I'd really like to try a fresh one. Speaking of good candy that is no longer produced, I really like Necco Wafers but was saddened to hear that they stopped making them a few years back. I live pretty close to the Canadian border and I often see travelers with Canadian license plates driving around so I wish there was market for Canadian grocery items around these parts. I guess I'll need to take a trip up there one day and see what other candy they have to offer.

And there's so much American stuff that I love that you can't get here anymore or have never been able to get! Thankfully there's online shops that are dedicated to it now, or getting people to throw in goodies when doing trades.
I'm on a big island and over 1000 miles from Maine, so not easy to go to the US. Haha

I decided to open the second pack. It wasn't good. It had little bugs in it that were still alive and the Lowney bar was basically turned into powder. I was able to salvage everything else, though. The apples were also soft and weren't very edible and the Dipps bar was pretty mushy so I passed on those. As far as the cheese goes, now that I'm trying it a second time, I still like the taste of it but the texture is really weird on my teeth. It almost felt like eating sand.