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That works fine, but not as good as a thicker insulator. I also use a soft-side lunch bag with a mylar liner, and am thinking about making up an aluminized mylar (think "space blanket" for this) bag just for MRE heating. It all depends on what you have along with you, really. If that's just the MRE outer bag, fine. But if you have anything else, that's possibly even better.

My "Hot-Pouch" is Reflectix [or a windshield sun protector] in a leftover USPS priority mail Tyvek envelope, both cut down to size for a pair of the MRE retorts. It has a fold-over flap top that tucks into a duct tape band around the middle... works a charm, and only a few grams.
It slides right into my backpack sleeve for my water bladder [which I seldom fill until just before camp].

I just did a review of a 2001 MRE and did the salt trick and a heating method Rocky Raab recommends with keeping the actual meals on the outside of the activated FRH. I've done that 4 times now Rocky with 3 dud heaters and this newest attempt with a halfway working heater in a mylar bag. With my experience nothing beats boiling water, an engine block or an exhaust pipe if you have a running vehicle handy.

Cheers!
GD

I will not say where or when...but doing a comparison with 2 FRH's from 2011 in 2 separate coke bottles...one with plain water, one with salinated water...the salinated water did expand faster, and seemed to get a better head of steam right before we...i mean, right before It got shot with a pellet gun...

Yesterday, I tired the salt trick for the first time. It was a quite new FRH (date 5023) so it likely would have worked fine without it, but I wanted to experiment.

About half a salt packet into the FRH before I added the water turned that thing into a nuclear FRH. It got too hot to handle in seconds. I was glad to have inserted it into the cardboard sleeve before I added the water! It heated my Beef Taco entree piping hot.

By the way, because I no longer insert the meal into the FRH, it was easy to slide it out of the cardboard sleeve and turn it over while the FRH continued to rumble and steam. That heated the pouch through from both sides - and left it dry and free of chemical gunk. I strongly recommend you do the same.

I had today a Sopacko civilian ration form 2014. I dissolved about 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt in 3 oz /100 ml of water. The FHR started like a rocket ! But it worked little shorter than with the pure water (max 10 minutes). Anyway the result was very good - it was warmer than the normal method
I will show it in a video next Monday

I think RR has nailed the proportion there at a 1/2 packet.
I have only tried it once. However, using my tyvek/reflectix sleeve, with the retort outside of the FRH[ clueless on the date... didn't think to look], I had a beef something or other that got pretty hot, pretty quick.
I need to try with some of my very very very old FRH's [of which I have too many] and see if it will revitalize them.

I have tried the salt packet to the FRH and it definitely makes a real difference...

I'm glad I found this tip. I tried my first MRE last night (2014, #3) and I was disappointed at the lack of heat in the meal. I'm going to give this a whirl on the next one for sure.

Tried it today on a Cheese Tortellini and it worked. I wonder how this method of activation was figured out?