my Menu C order came in

[semjaza]

Hi all, my first post here. Tiny bit of background on me: I'm not military, past or present, but a few years back a former coworker came back from his deployment with extra MRE's and I bought a few off him to sample what our finest armed forces folks munch on. I became strangely fascinated with the concept of shelf-stable foods. Fascinated in a minor way, it took me until now to actually decide to buy some. This site (mreinfo.com) is full of cool information, kudos to KMan and the other site authors!

I decided to take a chance and order two cases of Menu C's. I have read here that the results have been spotty but for a variety of reasons I decided to go ahead. I'm not a big outdoorsman, other than boating; but I wanted to keep a small stock of MRE's on my sailboat in case disaster ever strikes and we're stranded. I also stored away about 20 gallons of distilled water a few years back when I'd borrowed a stovetop distiller and figured I'd put some food down in the basement to go with it. Maybe I've seen I am Legend a bit too many times, or read The Stand a few too many times, or the whole H1N1 "swine" flu thing made an impression on my subconcious?

So anyway: two cases, both packed 02/16/2009. My order from MREDepot was shipped the next business day and arrived in good order, two cases double boxed. I've only opened two pouches so far. The menu I received (according to the pouch stampings) matches what MREDepot has on their website:

1. chicken pesto pasta
2. chicken breast with rib meat
3. cheese tortellini
4. chili and macaroni
5. penne pasta w/veg sausage
6. chicken with noodles
7. chicken with salsa
8. beef patty, with bbq sauce
9. beef ravioli in meat sauce
10. meatballs in marinara
11. meatloaf w/brown gravy
12. barbeque pork rib

I opened #10 and #7. First, #10, meatballs in marinara:

• match: entree - 310 cal (ameriqual)
• match: heater + bev bag
• match: peas and pasta - 470 cal (ameriqual). The back of the box has an HDR advert, I'd not seen that before, but I am new to this...
• match: crackers - 180 cal (ameriqual)
• match: apple jelly - 70 cal (portion pac)
• match: shortbread cookie - 210 cal (ameriqual)
• match: candy: red hots - 40 cal
• match: acc packets, there are two: #1: spoon, creamer, pepper, salt, napkin, sugar, moist towelette, generic instant coffee, spoon. #2: tp, gum, matches, creamer, pepper, salt, taster's choice instant coffee

total cals: 1,280

I thought it was odd to have two accessory kits, but only one had a spoon, and that one was missing TP, gum, matches.

Now for #7, chicken with salsa ... this was the odd one. Yep, you guessed it ... substitutions!

• /NO/MATCH: entree is sloppy joe - 320 cal (ameriqual)
• match: mexican style corn - 150 cal (ameriqual)
• match: crackers - 180 cal (ameriqual)
• halfmatch: cheese spread (no bacon) - 180 cal (thermo pac)
• halfmatch: cherry blueberry cobbler (mredepot menu has no cherry) - 210 cal (ameriqual)
• match: candy ii (skittles) - ?? cal, not labelled
• match: acc packets -- same as #10

total cals: 1040 (-ez? oh wait we're past april 15th .. sorry!)

If and when I open more pouches I'll find this post and add a reply with the new info ... dunno when that'll be, honestly, my fridge is stuffed with fresh food so naturally I intend to eat that first.

A note about myself, part 2: I don't really care that what was in #7 didn't exactly match MREDepot's advertised list. For me, this is primarily emergency food, and in case of emergency, I'll be damn happy to have it at all. Plus I'm really not picky. If half the items were flat out missing I'd have been upset of course. And again, I bought one case for storage, the other to eat if I'm bored with cooking, or spending the whole day in a boatyard, etc etc -- and will probably store the leftover unopened rats.

Pics below. Nice to meetcha all, and stay safe!

entree

back of entree

peas and pasta

back of the peas and pasta

crackers

shortbread cookie

accessory kits, jelly, candy

[semjaza]

Just a quick note: A friend and I opened two more -- #8 and #12.

#12 was an exact match to the published menu on mredepot.com
#8 was a close match: lemon beverage base was the "true lemon" packet "equals 1 wedge" that others have mentioned, and the candy is missing. But otherwise exact match.

[semjaza]

Oh, and we examined all pouches from the case I opened: four had incomplete pouch seals, which would mean air can enter the pouch ... not much, I'll admit, but a quarter inch unsealed portion means it's not a sealed pouch. Everything inside looked sealed well tho.

[kman]

semjaza, thanks for the detailed reviews of what you found in your Menu Cs. I've had some communication with MREDepot and we now have three confirmed reports of the contents of the current cases. It looks like MREDepot has finally updated their menus here:

http://www.mredepot.com/servlet/the-270 ... eal/Detail

The new menus on their site now match up almost exactly to what people have been receiving since late January. The main variations I've been seeing as in the spreads - if you see "Cheese Spread" listed as a spread you might receive Cheese Spread or it might be Apple Jelly or Peanut Butter. But that's not such a big difference.

I understand what you're saying about the menu variations not being much of a big deal, semjaza. With these new menus, a minor substitution here or there isn't so bad. But when the "original" Menu Cs started getting menu substitutions, they were wholesale - the MREs people were receiving were nothing like what was listed - and they had drastically fewer calories.

But it looks like everything is up-to-date now and I'm in the process of updating the Menu C web pages on MREInfo.com.

[Treesuit]

Kman,

In your e-mail to MREDepot.com did you mentioned the fact that there have been unheard of substitutions in the Menu's and no response to any inquires as to why this is? Seems like the backlash of bad news finally caught up with them or that they're now getting a handle on things?

[kman]

Treesuit, I haven't had an in-depth conversation with them yet so I'm not sure what happened with the lack of communication about the menu changes. From what I've seen so far, the menus changed around the first of 2008...yes, 2008, and they just recently updated the menus on their website to reflect this. I'm told they've made some internal changes to hopefully stop this from happening again in the future so I guess we'll see how it goes.

For now (and I just updated my own copy of their menus), the listed menus match up with what they're shipping.

Interestingly enough, the calorie count has dropped pretty dramatically down to an average of 1,146 per MRE. That's almost exactly what all the other civilian MREs have. It's not necessarily bad, it's just that the Menu Cs have lost their "packed with calories" title.

[hannonmc]

Still haven't received any response to my inquiries about bad menus / bad menu variation.

If I had gotten one of the newer cases with a decent menu variation, I don't think I would be as annoyed as I am with what I received.

Only so much Mexican Corn, Pineapple, Wheat Snack Bread that I can handle...

[kman]

hannonmc - I'd recommend that you keep emailing them. I don't know how much email they receive, but I'll bet it's a lot and if you emailed a while back, it might have already fallen off their radar. Yes, it sucks that you have to re-email, but at least it might get their attention.