New user, with some questions about MREs

[Sirenemarie83]

Hello everyone.
I'm new to this forum. Basically, I got interested after watching some of Steve1989's MRE reviews over on YouTube.

The questions I have are MRE related (naturally), but they have come about due to a pen&paper RPG campaign, for which I'm currently writing scenarios and such.

The actual questions are:
1: How long can an MRE last when it is put into a freezer?
2: Does the US armed forces have a 24 hour 1-man MRE? And if yes, how much does it weigh?


If I have any further questions I'll ask when they some up.



Regards
Sirenemarie833

[carlosflar]

Welcome to the forums!
On a freezer, if you do it well, over 20 years for a MRE, maybe individual components go bad first but frozen most of it should hold up well, for a freedried ration, like a MCW, frozen, even more time, much more...
As for 24h rations, you have the first strike ration and in the past there have been other like the RCW and the RCI

[Sirenemarie83]

Thank you.

Actually, it's for a D20 Modern (D20 Apocalypse) Plague World RPG campaign, with the time in freezer being about 200 to 300 years. I was wondering if that is, in any way, possible.

And I'll have to look those up, then.

[carlosflar]

If you are interested in storing food for a time that long you would have to go for other things, rations wouldnt hold for a time that long... it would be much much wiser to opt for storage of refined nutrients in its most stable conformation to avoid naturally occurring reactions that could lead to unsafe results after that long, with any piece of food there is the problem of the weackest link, there are substances with a shorter decay than other, this is why for example, a pack of freeze-dried oats will hold long time, but not dehidrated milk, so if you make a pack of oats with milk for breackfast in a ration, it will hold for as long as the milk holds... For a storage that long, the best idea would be to store single components separatedly in stable chemical formations... for example glucose, it would be a better idea to store it refined and purified in its maximum concentration, in glass, and with a moisture and oxigen absorbent...
Any form of humanly edible food you would want to store for a period that long would not be close to a ration or a ready/practical source of food... But if you wanted to store a form of nutricion for the future, the easiest way in my opinion would be to store its building blocks, that being organic compounds, nitrogen compounds and oligoelements in stable forms, store spores of yeasts, fungi and other bacteria with usefull metabolisms, seeds of a wide variety of plants and with that transform the organic compounds and nitrogen compounds into edible material... And boom you got food! All of those things if done properly should be good enough to last more than 200 years...

[Sirenemarie83]

Ah, so Wizards of the Coast bleep'ed up when they made the Plague World campaign. Ordinary MREs stored in a dry stores type warehouse, in an underground bunker, unfrozen or unrefrigerated. Oh well, I'll just change the food items to a metric bleep-tonne of various seeds in a freezer, then. Anyways, thanks for helping me with this.
As a civilian, my only experence with MREs was back in 8th grade (around when I was 14, so about 21, almost 22, years ago*), and those were the Royal Danish Army single meal MREs. Three MREs a day. That was a fun week with my class.

[carlosflar]

Oh wow i would definitelly trade you those for some seeds Looks like a really fun exercice, although probably you dont learn much from it, its still interesting, like doing a soda volcano, you dont really learn much about it but its still fun... My crave for rations also comes from when i was a kit, there was a fair and the army used to do some small ''training'' for kids, and in the end they would give you a spanish ration... It was really neat

[Sirenemarie83]

Sadly, I don't have any MREs laying around. I just had the experience of trying the Danish military MREs when I was a teen, and on a school trip. Also, I don't have a garden, so I have no use for the seeds. Besides, I very much doubt that they'd clear customs here in Denmark. But thanks for the offer of trade anyway. If you really are interested in Danish military rations, go watch Steve1989's video where he's reviewing the Danish military 2015 24 hour ration. It'll give you a good idea of what to expect/look for.

Also, those MREs I tried way back when, they were mostly freeze-dried dishes that needed to be rehydrated with hot/boiling water. Sort of like Mountain House camping rations. With accessories that included powdered fruit drink mixes, instant cup of soup, some candy.

[carlosflar]

Dont worry XD it was more a joke really

[Sirenemarie83]

Ah, ok. That was a bit difficult to realize, given that there are lots of things lost when language is in written form.

[Shawn]

Wtf is goin on in here?