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Hi everyone. I need some advice on which MRE I should be getting. The situation is that I am a mom, who needs to get her family's emergency supplies in order for hurricane season. I am going the MRE route since my husband and I may have to carry supplies for our small children as well as ourselves and MRE's seem to be the most effective and efficient way of carrying our food supply. I need you guys to tell me which of these are decent meals. I can't taste them - so I am relying on you.

So here's the thing. As a careful little mom, the ebay idea sounds a little risky since I may have a problem with the age, etc. of the MRE. I have found the following manufacturers to choose from but am stuck. What do you guys think would work best for us. As far as I can puzzle out, my choices are (in the order i THINK i might rank them if taste/quality/portion size were equal). Right now - I am leaning toward the EverSafe with additions of individual MRE purchases to round it out.

But you guys, please help! What do they TASTE like? Correct my PRO's and CON's - PLEASE!!!

CHOICE 1 - $$$
EverSafe™ Complete Meal Kits - Make your Own case of 9.
PRO - Although the price is getting up there (> $7 per meal ), I could build my own.
PRO - There is a breakfast menu item (Apple & Cinnamon Oatmeal Complete Meal Kit) and a kid friendly item (Macaroni & Cheese Complete Meal Kit)
PRO - has water (but how much?)

CON - doesn't look like much food. Not much snackie foods.

CHOICE 2 - $
MRE's - the ones on epicenter.

PRO - I can order those in the quantities I choose. There IS a breakfast item - 2005 Cheese Omelet that the husband might want.
CON - there is not much to choose from on epicenter.

Also, are these complete meals? Do I have to buy heaters separately? Sounds silly but from a convenience perspective - the self-contained packages would be better. No digging around looking for this or that. Remember, I'm dealing with a family of four.

CHOICE 3 - $$
aPack™ (Self-Heating Emergency MRE Meal) - 12 Pack
CON - No breakfast
PRO - Sqwincher would be good for the kids?

CHOICE 4 - $$
Sure-Pak 12 MRE case with heaters ( I think that hot meals may be easier for the family to handle)
CON - No breakfast
PRO - Coffee would be good for the husband!

"MENU - C" or "MENU - D" Entree list

CHOICE 5 - $$
Heater Meals
PRO - These look very nice - best packaging so that would appeal to family. (But you can't eat the packaging )
CON - no beverage, haven't found breakfast available in a mixed case. I did read some scary breakfast reviews also.


Thank you in advance for any replies. I did check a lot of other threads but didn't find anything that really put these side by side. Thank you! Thank you!

BTW - thank god i found this forum!

First, consider longlifefood.com, they have a giant selection, and the prices all work out to be quite comparable. Second, why not real MRE's? You usually get more bang for your buck out of them. Third, Self heating, pretty much all MRE's will be self heating, you just stick them in a bag and add a little bit of water, don't let the heater be an issue, they're also pretty cheap to purchase apart from MRE's. Fourth, IF you don't need them, the heater meals don't last as long as regular MRE's, but the entree's at least appear more appetizing. Basically, if you haven't had an MRE they're just TV Dinners using retort packaging. At least, that's what they taste like IMHO. Consider the fact that you should have plenty of water, so there shouldn't be a shortage for the bev mixes that are included with MRE's, and most of them are pretty okay, some better than others, but none really bad IMO again though. Uhmm.. this should be up above, but those Sure-Pak meals are like MRE's but missing a side dish, and less variety. Note also that you'll need a case of MRE's a dayish for a family of four, although they don't make a very appetizing breakfast. Realize that one of the easiest solutions for this, which is what I do when I go camping is to just bring along (or in this case just buy and store in a zip-lock) some oatmeal.

Okay, seeing as you won't be purchasing on ebay, my suggestion is to go over to longlifefood.com and buy what sounds interesting. Remember that canned food is fine for emergencies like this, so I would just purchase Entrees, maybe some dessert items, and look at purchasing a portable butane stove. They sell them at Target now, probably wal-mart also, along with the butane cartridges you need to go with them, and they're real easy to use, no mess. For drinks, just buy a bunch of capri-suns or something along those lines if you're worried about what the kids like, no reason to buy something long term if you only need to store it for 2 months. Take a look at the favorite MRE's list, and use your best judgement as far as what entrees to pick up, my easy favorites are Chili Mac and Chicken and Salsa, although the Chicken really goes best with the mexican rice side dumped into it.

Hope this helps, sorry if it's in a crappy order, I just sort of ran with stream of consciousness and then cut and pasted a bit. If you're worried about being displaced in the floods, rather than without power however, make sure and put a day or two of supplies in a backpack that you can grab on your way out the door.

Thanks BigMark! I appreciate the new website - I will definitely check it out. And your last comment is correct - I am looking for the stored in a backpack variety of food - I don't relish the idea of canned food hanging off my back and a little one in each hand if we get displaced.

Thank you! I will print out the fav's list and check out longlifefoods.com!

I'm going to echo some of BigMark's comments, with a few additions.

http://www.longlifefood.com/ has some good products. I really think you might be better off with components instead of full meals. Keep in mind that the usual male consumes more calories than does the typical female; in addition, your children will probably have caloric needs different than either you or your husband.

A typical MRE has about 1200 calories. With components, you'll have a choice of what you want - a much better choice than with cases of MREs. You can also choose to add more fruit, or a particular kind of dessert, or a preferred beverage. The items at longlifefood include nutritional information.

While I recognize that hurrican season is upon us, you might wish to order a variety of entrees and side items and have a tasting. Then you can decide on which items would be best during an emergency.

Do be sure to get the heaters - they're very easy to use, but some meals don't include them.

Another vendor you might consider is http://beprepared.com/ They have some items unavailable at longlifefood.

You might want to consider getting some accessory packs at Epicenter - they include Tobasco sauce, the towlette, and other items. The seasoning can be helpful at times.

Good luck!

Welcome to the forums, SouthernMom! BigMark and HK47 had some good advice for you so I thought I'd throw in my two cents worth, too.

First, let me go over your four choices and then I'll dive into some of the survival-food specifics.

CHOICE 1 - EverSafe Complete Meal Kits
I'm not a big fan of the EverSafes. Wornick was one of the original companies to come out with civilian MREs (the Mil-Spec brand) but then they stopped making them. Then Katrina happened and they apparently (re)saw the value of emergency food for civilians and they started developing the EverSafes. At first, the EverSafes looked like they were going to be MRE-like. But then they started talking about a bowl-like meal. Then they introduced both the MRE-like meals and the bowl-like meals. And then they dropped the MRE-like meals. Personally, I don't think Wornick is committed to the civilian MRE market and I wouldn't spend my money with them. Wornick seems more interested in selling pallet-loads of expensive EverSafes to corporations and not very interested in selling a good emergency meal to civilians. We've had a couple of threads on the forums about EverSafes and if you haven't read through them yet, I'd encourage you to take a look. Just be warned - the product that CaptBob reviewed in one thread is no longer the one being sold by Wornick. That's too bad because I liked that one best.

CaptBob's EverSafe thread:
viewtopic.php?t=301

CHOICE 2 - MRE's - the ones on epicenter.
Are you talking about the individual MRE entrees on the Epicenter? I ask that because they also sell the Sopakco Sure-Paks that you have down as Choice #4. If you do mean the entrees, then it's really a toss-up between purchasing them from theepicenter.com, mrefoods.com, longlifefoods.com, or beprepared.com. Check out this thread for recent entree pricing from these guys:

viewtopic.php?t=560

Personally, I love stocking up on entrees when I can find them for a good price. Lots of entrees would make a good, portable emergency food supply but I would think you'd have to supplement it with some other things like crackers, spreads, etc. Sure, you could survive on entrees-only, but you'll probably start wishing for other things to add to meal.

CHOICE 3 - aPack MREs
I haven't tried the aPacks yet but from what I've seen and read, they look very promising. These are Ameriqual's entry into the civilian MRE market (finally!) and they look on par with Sopakco's Sure-Paks. Depending on pricing, if you're looking for the "reliability" of a civilian MRE (backed by someone you can sue if you get a bad one), then either the aPacks or Sure-Paks would be the way to go.

CHOICE 4 - Sure-Pak 12 MRE case with heaters
See my comments on Choice #3 above.

With all that said, I would add a 5th choice and this would be my number one choice:

CHOICE 5 - real MREs from eBay
I realize you said you want to be careful and that's why you ruled out MREs from eBay but I don't think it's that's risky. Here's why:

Price: there have been some deals on eBay lately - forget those $60 cases, I've seen some $30 cases with reasonable shipping. Lets say you could get a case for $45 total. A case of Sure-Paks is going to cost you around $65 plus shipping and a case of aPacks will be around $75 (shipping included) from mrefoods.com. That's a pretty big price savings by going with eBay.

Quality: as long as you're careful, you shouldn't have to worry about getting "old" MREs from eBay. Just pay attention to the menus and to the packed/inspection dates and you can be sure to score a case of MREs from 2005 or 2006. As for worrying about the storage conditions, yes, that's something you can't really tell but my experience has been that MREs hold up well despite varied storage conditions. I still have MREs from 1992 that I have no idea where or how they've been stored for the past 14 years and yet they're still good. I also have some MREs "fresh" from the Iraqi desert where I *know* they've been heat-stressed and yet they're still good (ok...for those, I won't keep them for years on end...maybe just a few years). But my point is that whatever you get from eBay is probably going to be just fine.

Variety: You're definitely going to get more food and more variety with a case of real MREs than you will with any civilian MRE. Even better, take a look at the how the pricing breaks down for this variety. If you go with longlifefood.com, 12 entrees will cost you $36 ($3 each). If you can get a case of MREs for $45 (only $9 more), not only do you get your 12 entrees, but you also get all the crackers, bread, sides, desserts, spoons, heaters, etc. I once priced out what it would cost to buy all the individual parts of a case of MREs from longlifefoods and it came up to about $120. So for $45, you're getting a lot of stuff that you just can't affordably buy any other way.

So that's my pitch. Military MREs are the cheapest option - canned food and stuff like that could be had cheaper. But for portable, ready-to-eat food, I don't think you can do any better. I've tried the heater meals and just wasn't impressed - especially for the cost.

One of your other concerns about your choices was breakfast. While there is an omelet MRE, I wouldn't count on it breakfast day after day. If it were me, I would try to get by on two MREs a day. I crack open an MRE for breakfast and eat the crackers, cheese or peanut butter (or even the pop tart if I got the right MRE) for breakfast and then finish off the entree and dessert for lunch. Then I'd have a whole MRE for dinner. This would cut down on the number of MREs you'd need.

Another option if you're concerned about breakfast is to stock up on some boxes of instant oatmeal and or breakfast bars/squares. If you can find a way to heat up water, you can have a hot instant breakfast of real breakfast food - and that stuff certainly won't cost as much as MREs.

As for kids and MREs, depending on how old your kids are and how much they eat, you might be able to get by with sharing one MRE between them. All the crackers, for instance, come as two 4"x4" crackers - the equivalent of 8 saltine crackers. While the Sqwincher drink mix you mentioned from the aPacks might be good for kids, I think the beverage base stuff from the MREs would work just the same - it's basically kool-aid.

In the end, depending on what you can afford to do financially, I would recommend trying all of your choices - buy a case of Eversafes, aPacks, Sure-Paks, and real MREs. This way, you'll definitely have a good supply of food and little experimenting with the family will show you what they like best. Maybe have an "MRE evening" every week where you sample the above cases to see what everyone likes. Personally, I think your kids will probably like the MREs. After all, the menus were designed to be appealing to 18 year old soldiers fresh away from home.

Something else to consider - a case of MREs weighs about 23 pounds - the MREs by themselves are about 21 pounds. If you're going to be eating two MREs per adult per day and two MREs for two kids per day, you'll get two days worth of food out of a case of MREs. That starts to be a lot of food to carry around. You might consider "field stripping" your MREs and just bringing along the components you need. For example, you might not need all the accessory pack and all the spoons and who knows what else. This might make it easier to pack and store for a trip.

First of all - thank you to HK47 and kman! I really appreciate everyone's (including BigMark's) very thoughtful replies! You've put a lot of thought into my solution and I can't thank you enough.

Talked to the husband last night and went over all of my packing plans. He is totally on board (whew!) and thinks the MRE route is a good one to take. So here is what I am going to do - I hope you were curious!

1. Dig through our camping gear and dig out our sons' mess kits that they earned while in Scouts - maybe I'll be able to get by with fewer utensils.
2. I am going to buy breakfast bars, small cereal boxes and shelf milk or powdered milk for breakfast and use the ole foodsaver in the kitchen to "package" 3 days worth of breakfast "MRE's" for the fam, SouthernMom style. That'll solve the breakfast dilemma - thanks guys! If the kids get difficult, we can always feed them the breakfast MRE's for lunch too and mom and dad will just have to get by on coffee!
3. Order a few MRE's for lunches and dinners - and experiment on the boys . They are at the right age to think its cool to have them for lunches and the gaggle of neighborhood boys are always needing to be fed. Heck, its cheaper than feeding them pizza when they descend like a pack of locusts and I'll just bogart a taste for myself. I will definitely field strip the pack and repackage as neccesary with the ole foodsaver to get these just right for lunches and dinners.

kman, thanks for the weights on the cases. That was information I couldn't seem to find. I was really hoping for a solution that was lighter than a bunch of pantry goods strapped to my back. An old friend who is a scout leader impressed the importance of weight when going into a back country type of situation. He regularly has to throw canned foods sent by well-meaning parents out because the boys' packs are just too heavy - and then the boy's have to be fed from everyone else's packs. They just do not get it. I don't want to wind up in the same situation if we have to boogie for a couple of days. The weight sounds pretty good since we'll have 2 large duffle bags to split things up between.

You know, you guys are awesome. I am actually getting excited about MRE's! Shhhhh, don't tell. I'll write back and let you know how it goes. I am currently compiling the Fav's list to generate my first order. I'll post the list when I'm done - if anyone else wants to know.

From the feedback on the FAV's (to date), i ordered the following for my first MRE trial (children beware: )

MRE ENTRÉE Roast Beef
MRE ENTRÉE Meatloaf with Gravy
MRE ENTRÉE Cheese Tortellini Vegetarian
MRE ENTRÉE Chicken and Shells (Cavatelli)
MRE ENTRÉE Chicken Salsa



From the FAV's

Best
Votes Dish
3 beef pot roast with veggies
3 Meatloaf w/ Brown Gravy
2 beef steak
2 cheese tortellini
2 Chicken Cavetelli
2 Chili Mac
2 Spaghetti
1 Any version of the pasta w/ tomato sauce
1 Anything with Potatoes
1 Beef Teriyaki
1 Canadian IMP peaches
1 chicken patty
1 Chicken w/ Salsa
1 Corned Beef Hash
1 Ham Slice
1 Ham w/ Mustard Sauce
1 HDR (Humanitarian Daily Ration) peanut butter
1 IMP drinks - Orange-Pineapple
1 jamaican pork chop
1 jambalaya
1 Meatballs w/ Tomato Sauce
1 ORP (Brit) Turkey Pate
1 Salmon Filet
1 Spiced apples
1 veggie burger

Worst
Votes Dish
3 Alfredo sauce
2 CCC
1 beef frankfurters
1 Beef Stew
1 Bread
1 Canadian drink mixes
1 Canadian IMP "Shepherd's Pie"
1 Canadian wet-pack cherries
1 cereal
1 chicken breast
1 eggs
1 IMP Breakfast Sausage and Hashbrowns
1 jambalaya
1 milk
1 noodles
1 Rice

Those are some pretty good choices. I'm betting the kids will like the Spaghetti and Chili Mac MREs the best - those entrees are almost straight out of a can of Chef Boyardee.

Be careful with the Beef Steak though - if it's "Beef Steak with Mushrooms in Sauce", that's probably good. But if it's "Beef Steak, Chunked and Formed" (in other words, a hamburger-like thing), you're going to need some heat and some crackers or bread to make that thing taste ok.

I agree, but I like them all cold also. You are right about my current favorite. Much better heated some. Just got a case A with 0004/09 Insp. date. 05 meals, except for the Penne Pasta. No Chili Beans, but had the awesome Egg Omelet mit Vegetable entree!

I'm surprised that no one suggested the Mountain House option.