Just bought our first MREs -Meals Ready to Eat

  • Thread starter Thread starter LynnieLew
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You do realize that the shelf life date on canned goods is just a suggestion, for the best flavor, don’t you all??
When they found the Titanic, they brought up canned goods that had been sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic since 1912…All the cans that were sealed, the food was still perfectly safe to eat! Only the ones that had been breached were gone bad. Over 70 years!
I will trust my canned goods over that MRE stuff any day!!
 
Yes, I am preparing for that.
I want to prepare for an emergency like, natural disasters, blizzard, terrorist attack, etc.

I hardly think spending $65 for emergency food can be considered “all my hard earned money”.

If it comes close to reaching its experation date then we will donate it a local boy scout troop for camping or something like that.

It may seem silly to some people that my family has done this but the thought of my children being hungry really worries me.

I also feel like some posters have been judgmental about me preparing. I don’t think that is fair.
johnnybhoy said:
Why are you all spending your hard earned on buying these MRE’s?

Are you preparing to survive some sort of disaster situation? If so what do you have in mind?
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I hardly think spending $65 for emergency food can be considered “all my hard earned money”.
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$65 to be able to drop one worry out of your mind and get sleep at night - quite a bargain.

While I don’t spend money on shelf-stable foods specifically for that purpose, I do make sure I’m reasonably prepared. We do a fair bit of camping. So when I bought a single burner stove, I just spent the extra for a “multi-fuel” type which will operate with just about any liquid fuel. We’ve got a water filter for camping. And a chest freezer that is usually packed with foods. If power goes out in winter, we’re OK. If we lose power in the summer I suppose we’ll be runnin’ that smoker like crazy making venison jerky. Generally summer outages are shorter lived because roads are not too icy.

It just plain wise to ask yourself, “What would we do without power and natural gas?” Then go about making preparations for it.

The biggest investment I made was a wood stove. But we were looking for something that was an alternative to the gas company’s prices. What tipped me in favor of a woodstove instead of a pellet stove was the fact that pellet stoves were still dependent on outside power sources. That, and making wood is good anti-cholesterol excersize.
 
No, we’ve never bought them. Like other posters we keep a regular supply of a few weeks of canned food that we rotate regularly. Thaknfully we are in an area that isn’t subject to a lot of dangerous weather. If fact, in our 14 years in this house we have never lost power! My kids are old enough now also to understand having to eat refried beans out of the can–especially if they can chase it with some chocolate!
 
I remember an ice storm here that left us without power or heat for 7 days. We couldn’t leave the house. Boy, that was a challenge. Luckily my parents had a fireplace for warmth.
Sr_Sally said:
No, we’ve never bought them. Like other posters we keep a regular supply of a few weeks of canned food that we rotate regularly. Thaknfully we are in an area that isn’t subject to a lot of dangerous weather. If fact, in our 14 years in this house we have never lost power! My kids are old enough now also to understand having to eat refried beans out of the can–especially if they can chase it with some chocolate!
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Gosh! I guess I’m the only person on the planet who enjoys the taste of MRE’s!!

A while back someone wrote a negative article about the MRE Chicken Stew. I tried one and it was simply Chicken Pot Pie without the crust. Tasted delicious. My favorite is probably the Noodles with Ham. And by far, the Maple Cake is fabulous. They also have a pound cake that is reminiscent of supermarket pound cake. Not wild about the lentil stew, but it’s “edible”.

They are designed to have an almost indefinite shelf life. The inner package has multiple foil layers to prevent air from getting in.

The problem with canned goods that are kept for emergencies is that after a (few?) years, the bottoms may develop a leak. (That is what happened with us. What a mess.)

MRE’s are designed to be eaten without having to add water (as you would need to do with freeze-dried foods). In addition, the package has a little notch so it can be ripped open without scissors and they can be eaten cold. They can be heated, however. Sometimes you can actually buy an MRE heater, but they can be placed on an engine block. Not a good idea to microwave them.

You can also save money by only buying the MRE “entrees”; they are also more compact … without all the “accessories”.

If you visit Google, you can check out “MRE entrees”.

AND, you never know about emergencies. We have had bad storms with no electricity for a week because of all the downed trees. And some of my work commutes have been miserable, and if I got trapped at work (icy hills, etc), I kept a large plastic container in the car trunk with a sleeping bag and some MRE’s … just in case.
 
Some MRE packaets are better than others. I’d avoid the mexican dinner one, but the salisbury steak is pretty good, as is the spaghetti.

MREs are certainly better than C-Rations. Several times in recruit training, instead of a tray we were handed a P-38 “John Wayne” can opener and a box; no choice of what. We went to the tables and started making trades. The milk and drink dispensers got heavy usage for those meals.
 
Al,

I liked some. Some I didn’t care for.

It’s all in the packaging. If you ask me I’ll bet most people who can enjoy Chef Boyardee, Dinty Moor, and Hostess would enjoy MREs if they only didn’t see the package.

That said, there is a definite quality difference between fresh spaghetti (even if the sauce was canned) and Chef Boyardee; but I still like the stuff, it’s just not what I would call top-notch.
 
That is what happened to my mom. I bunch of her cans, after 5 years I think, started leaking and buldging. Not a good sign at all.

I liked the idea of keeping one in the car. Thanks Al!
Al_Masetti said:
The problem with canned goods that are kept for emergencies is that after a (few?) years, the bottoms may develop a leak. (That is what happened with us. What a mess.)

AND, you never know about emergencies. We have had bad storms with no electricity for a week because of all the downed trees. And some of my work commutes have been miserable, and if I got trapped at work (icy hills, etc), I kept a large plastic container in the car trunk with a sleeping bag and some MRE’s … just in case.
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I’ve had MREs; they’re really not bad. Of course, if I were to lose electricity, I’d have to eat them cold, and maybe they wouldn’t taste so good then. 😃

Reminds me of a true story from when I was active in the Civil Air Patrol – another adult member and I were running a survival exercise for our cadet (teenage) members. We brought MRE’s for their food supply. At breakfast, a couple of the cadets looked at the contents of their MREs, and decided to check out what the seniors (adult members) were eating. They came over to us, where I was just opening up a nice tin of kippers to share. The cadets lost no time going back to their MREs! 😃
 
I was relieved to find out mine comes with it’s own heater, for each meal.

I think I might pass on the kippers too. 😉
CarolAnnSFO said:
I’ve had MREs; they’re really not bad. Of course, if I were to lose electricity, I’d have to eat them cold, and maybe they wouldn’t taste so good then. 😃

Reminds me of a true story from when I was active in the Civil Air Patrol – another adult member and I were running a survival exercise for our cadet (teenage) members. We brought MRE’s for their food supply. At breakfast, a couple of the cadets looked at the contents of their MREs, and decided to check out what the seniors (adult members) were eating. They came over to us, where I was just opening up a nice tin of kippers to share. The cadets lost no time going back to their MREs! 😃
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Dear LynnieLew,

Stocking up doesn’t hurt.

In 1999 when some of us thought the Y2K crash might cause all kinds of mayhem at the stroke of midnight of the year 2000 as computers all around the world crashed, I spent many months buying extra canned goods, cleaning supplies, personal hygiene items, you name it.

As it happened, midnight 2000 came and went, we all breathed a sigh of relief, … and then I became unemployed. Long story short, all those extra supplies really helped get me through until I got a decent job.

The Lord will provide … sometimes in advance! 👍

~~ the phoenix
 
Al_Masetti said:
They can be heated, however. Sometimes you can actually buy an MRE heater, but they can be placed on an engine block.
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The very last time I was deployed, our MRE’s included chemical heaters. You would fill your canteen cup (or was it the outer pouch?) with water, open and plop in a little chemical pouch, then place your meal pouch in the water, which would get super hot, heating the meal.

Great stuff.
 
MRE- Minds Rest Easy

At least that is how I feel now that I got them!
 
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