If so, I am surprised it is that good....

Pretty much sugar and fat, with a smattering of carbs.

(I guess it is not so far away from spam and chocolate bars!)

than an after-school snack for a child. The can of Vienna Sausages, made from chicken scraps scraped off the bones, has only 170 calories, and 130 of those calories are from fat.

"Mechanically separated chicken" is something you put in pet food, not human food. This is an insult to the Puerto Ricans. Yuck!

And in those chubs of chicken meat you can sometimes see in stores. (Mechanically separated beef, pork, and turkey are much more common.)

The only reason chicken nuggets aren't a staple in school cafeterias these days is their fat content. The problem, though, isn't their fat content but the rest of the American diet.

In a system where getting enough calories is an issue, "high-calorie food", typically meaning high-fat food, has a positive connotation. In Russian, "vysokokaloriinost'" or "high-caloricity" was something you looked for in food for decades. You'd ask, "Is this high-calorie" and smile as you grabbed it, thinking, "Score!" It was only in the '90s as the economy plummeted towards the basement in the de-facto improvement over the glorious Soviet economy of the '80s that "high-fat" became westernly tinged with the taint of undesirability. Take away the high-calorie foods and all that fat and you'd wind up with too few calories consumed per day.

Which brings us back to Puerto Rico where people in some areas aren't getting enough calories.

As for the appropriateness, yes, it's inappropriate in numerous ways. But you go to Walmart and say, "Hi, I'd like 6 million MREs for delivery tonight, and make that a standing order. They need to be able to withstand being in cargo holds and in warehouses, unrefrigerated, for up to 3 weeks in high-humidity conditions, sealed so if they're exposed to moisture they won't be ruined, able to withstand temperatures from near freezing to at least 120 degrees, and be able to withstand being dropped 150 feet without being ruined. If you could have individual, self-warming servings of lamb vindaloo with basmati on Tuesdays, that would be great, arroz con pollo on Sunday, and for variety how about some patacon on Saturday--keep the tostones separate from the filling, otherwise they get soggy. Don't forget the side salads. And keep the price really low."

Actually makes Spam look pretty good!

Hormel claims that it is made from only six ingredients: pork shoulder, ham, salt, water, potato starch, sugar and sodium nitrate.

No awful chemicals with names you cannot pronounce or spell.

Sodium Nitrate (Salt Peter) is in just about all processed meat products.

Not saying that it is health food, just an observation!

http://www.spam.com/varieties

I don't care for the taste of Spam, but it's not particularly unhealthful, really. As you point out, the ingredients are simple. Sodium nitrate is a common ingredient in processed meat products, of course. It helps to keep the botulism bacteria from growing. I try to avoid it, though, whenever possible, and more and more sausage products are available now without any of it. Good refrigeration makes that possible these days.

Canned Vienna sausages have a flavor and consistency that makes me gag. I cannot eat that stuff. My body tries to reject it. So, I listen to its reaction.

Theu have some unique gifts as well.

One of my favorites are the flip flops that leave a Spam impression in the sand!



They would be perfect on a Hawaiian beach!

FWIIW, I believe that I posted a recipe for Pg Newtons somewhere in the baking/cooking area.

A big hit a parties oddly enough.

The old one was interesting looking. I'm not sure about the new one. But, yes, they have tons of Spam merchandise, which you can also buy online, of course.

Oddly enough, you couldn't get anything made of Spam to eat at the old museum. You had to cross the street and get your Spamburger at a restaurant there. I don't know if that's still the same now.

Can't eat them. Won't eat them. They're not even food, as far as I'm concerned.

Kind of a last resort though, a scoop of pumpkin is much healthier but doesn't work well with tramadol once my dog figures it out. The sausage is foolproof, he just can't resist.

Good quality ones, anyhow. It does help get the pills into the dog. Cats, on the other hand...

How about military meals?

How much of this can we take? Will it really come to having a national March on Washington to demand the traitorous Republicans do their Constitutional duty?

Do we need to break our our pots and pans?

For much of the area, it would have to be done on open fires. That does limit people's ability to deal with rice and dried beans, which are a staple of the Puerto Rican diet. A large percentage of homes are uninhabitable right now.

These items can be used.

I watched my grandmother cook arroz y pollo (chicken & rice) over an open fire many times as a young girl. It can be done and in large quantity.

There is no respect on the part of this administration for the Puerto Rican people at all. Trump clearly hates brown people.

Not one per family member - just one for an entire family?

First off, there is little of nutritious value in that entire package, though there might be enough calories to keep one person going for one day. But for entire fucking families? And a family does not even get one of those per day. They are lucky if the teams get to their communities once every three or four days.

I'd love to see Dolt45's family live on two or at most three packs for a week. They'd be chewing each other's arms off by the third day!

Those are not particularly delicious but they pack a lot of calories and nutrition into them. The Army must have tons of them - but FEMA is handing out junk food.

for them to end up on eBay and other outlets.

The private companies that manufacture MREs for preppers and outdoor enthusiasts could also step up and donate a ton (perhaps literally) for a tax write-off, if for no other reason.

I mean, surely they have some sort of time based product rotation requirements as well that would make MRE's a very logical choice.

I understand that a lot of the items are actually fairly tasty, all things considered.

As is said, an Army travels on its stomach!

I'm not sure where they came from, but now they are relying on the food donations from private organizations like Operation Blessing, which contain real food of nutritional value.

It's not like they don't have enough MRE's for the next 50 years, but that would go against the TIC's idea; kill them all.

claim it as a business expense?

n/t

pretty pathetic when the best you can say is at least its not worse

at least having enough nutrition to sustain a soldier.

This is absolutely disgusting.

If so, then FEMA specified either the contents or the price limits and that's the best they could do? Even meals that are shipped to third world refugee camps are more nutritious. If this isn't discrimination, look at what other refugee get:





This is what Syrian refugees get.

------------



FEMA distributed these meals during Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

The Humanitarian Daily Ration (HDR) is a ready-to-eat meal similar to MREs, but at approximately one-fifth of the cost. The packages are designed to be able to survive being air-dropped, without a parachute. A single HDR is designed to provide a full day's sustenance with about 2200 calories, and they contain no animal products or by-products so as to be acceptable to a wide range of consumers with religious and dietary restrictions.

it might be a good idea to start accumulating a few months supply of food and water.

I could probably stretch my pantry for 3 months if needed. Given the shelf life of canned goods and dry rice, beans and pasta. There really isn't a reason not to if you have the space and can afford it. I'm in central Florida and the stores got wiped before Irma and took a while to get back to normal. I'd hate to see what would happen if a worse disaster happened. It's also a good idea to have a backup supply of toilet paper and paper towels. They were empty on the shelves for a while as well. There are springs nearby that I could go to get water. Knowing the nearest source to get fresh water is also a good idea.

It says to microwave them. How the hell are you going to microwave something if you don't have any power??!!??

Which is to say they're cooked and edible without need for heating, but seriously nasty regardless.

But that's just me. I don't need one more ass-kicking, scheduled or not.

This is some combination of malice and incompetence. I suspect mostly malice.

MRE's should be the least given out.

I was at the convention center in Houston to pick up a friend and FEMA was doing a lot more.

...pathetic.

What would be more nutritious and very economical would be rice, beans, vegetables, a little meat, some condiments, etc. Don't tell me we can't afford that.

In Houston they were handing out MREs at convention center.

No somethings smells.

FEMA money is going somewheres.

Skittles?? Hey, don't forget to add a vegetable: a ketchup packet.

=================

What did they give out for Katrina or Sandy?

Doesn't seem very nutritious.

Isn't that very cheap but still better than that bag.

My guess is that FEMA has some sort of contract with the companies who provide the food for these meals.

You can't go back to a grains&beans diet that has worked for millennia when there's money to be made!!!

- 200g grains
- 200g beans
- a sugary snack-bar with minerals and vitamins

A full day's food for $2 or less.

Fat from what?

about the same as Salad in their book.

3 Nutrigrain bars would have been a better choice, and I would have offered canned sardines for sausages, both are perfectly edible out of the can imo,

They use these all the time instead of MRE's to save money because they are 1/3 the cost. Especially common on the Reserve side.

For example if I was planning an exercise that had troops traveling by bus all day and I asked for MRE's they would give us these instead.

FEMA typically doesn't keep MREs on hand, although a lot of states do. I know NC and SC both keep hundreds of thousands of MRE's on hand for disaster response. FEMA tends to do last minute buys of whatever is available right then and there and disburses them, with the concept being that whatever the state has on hand is used to cover the need until FEMA gets in and starts distribution of what they are procuring.