Kicking Around Some Numbers

RoastBeastFan · Post by **RoastBeastFan** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:20 pm

I'm afraid I'm becoming slightly obsessed with MREs. I'm catching it from the rest of you guys. It's kind of alarming.

I decided to calculate what it would take to buy, right now, all the food I'll need for the rest of my life. Just for my own amusement, of course.

I'm not in a combat zone, so two MREs a day would be fine. That's 730 a year, or 29,200 for 40 years. I'm 39, and I like to think I'm not quite at the halfway point yet. For another couple months anyway.

29,200 MREs is 2,433 cases. If I could get them for $60 each, for $146,000 I'd be in food for the rest of my life. Maybe less if I can get a bulk discount. 40 years of food and never wash dishes again! This is starting to look pretty good. Though I admit it's not gonna be so hot when I reach 77 and have to eat cheese vegetable omelettes for the rest of my life.

But where to keep them? An MRE case is roughly 17 inches by 9.5 inches by 10.5 inches. That works out to almost exactly one cubic foot. 2,433 cases, if stacked in a cube, would therefore be 13.5 feet on each side. If stacked 8 feet high (so they fit in my house) they'll cover a mere 305 square feet. This really kind of amazes me; I could fit all the food I'll ever eat in my spare bedroom. And if I got a freezer large enough, they would last that long.

Of course, if I got married it would mess up all the numbers. But if you've read this far, you'll see why that's not likely to be a problem.

Now all I need is a walk-in freezer and $150k

Post by **kman** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 4:54 pm

Nice calculating. Now figure out the same numbers but this time for Ramen Noodles. :-)

RoastBeastFan · Post by **RoastBeastFan** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:11 pm

Ug. Ramen noodles? This would be an experiment to see whether you die of obesity or malnutrition first. Or perhaps, after a few months, voluntary starvation would seem like a better option...

But our interest is numbers. I dug around and found a site that says a Maruchan Ramen Noodle package has 190 calories "per serving", and 2 servings per package, or 380 calories per package. So, figure 5 per day, or 73,000 for 40 years. They're a dime apiece at Sam's, so that's only $0.50 per day, or $7,300 for 40 years worth.

I don't have a Ramen noodle package with me to measure it. I recall them being about 6 inches wide, 5 tall, and 1.25 thick, for a volume of 37.5 cubic inches, or 0.0217 cubic feet. 73,000 will be 1,584 cubic feet of noodles, which is actually less than the volume of MREs. It's an 11.7-foot-cube, or, stacked 8 feet high, 200 square feet. And you don't even have to freeze them!

But you do have to wash dishes. Major downside there.

BigMark · Post by **BigMark** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:08 pm

You could just eat the ramen dry.

Welcome to the forums, where abouts in central Tejas?

-M

RoastBeastFan · Post by **RoastBeastFan** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:27 pm

I'm in Bryan right now. But I grew up in College Station

Really, B/CS is so grown together now that I'm not even sure where one ends and the other begins.

How are things in Austin? The weather here today was absolutely gorgeous. Mid 70s and blue skies.

BigMark · Post by **BigMark** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 10:45 pm

A little cloudy but a great day. I wish I had done a little more, but I made sure to get out for a little while. Too bad I'm dieting, it would have been a perfect opportunity for a MRE.

RoastBeastFan · Post by **RoastBeastFan** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 12:18 am

Well I assembled and detonated my first FRH-in-water-bottle today. It made quite a pop, though it took about five minutes to build the pressure high enough. I caught it on video, so maybe I'll have that on YouTube if I can get Premiere Pro to cooperate.

dirtbag · Post by **dirtbag** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 12:22 am

I don't know if it would be a good idea to advertise you've made a FRH device. I heard they (FBI etc ) have classified them as explosives and making one is a no-no...

YMMV

RoastBeastFan · Post by **RoastBeastFan** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 12:26 am

Well now, I search for such videos of it on YouTube and found none. Which surprised me. It's easy to find videos of liquid nitrogen or dry ice in bottles blowing up, which uses essentially the same principle. Perhaps there's a reason nobody posts FRH videos... thanks for the head's-up on that.

DangerousDave · Post by **DangerousDave** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:05 pm

Food is food. A Sandwich is a sandwich. Any questions.(Thats what my Uncle said, back in 1972, when my Aunt offered me a sandwich, and I asked her "well, what have ya got?). Point: Never look a gift horse in the mouth, or something, like that.