So, tell me about MREs

Do they really taste that crappy?

never eaten one though

but I liked MRE's.. there were a few horriable MRE's but they stopped making them. (Frankfurters w/ bean component)

Meals Rejected by Ethiopians

I had a friend who loved the hot chocolate mix - thought it far superior to most commercial brands. Others would swear by someof the other chicken products. Like anything you grow used to it, then grow to hate it after a time.

They are generally eaten cold, which is part of it. Afer a weekend bivuac-type thing at the national guard fort in our area, including a 6 mile march before 6 am, etc. orenteerine excercises, 3 hours of sleep per night while taking turns standing watch, etc, we were exhausted and starving. To date, I do not think I have tasted anything as good as those packets of cold spaghetti and meatballs, crackers, dehydrated icecream, and juice mix.

Do they contain hyper-cafeinated coffee?

Has anyone compared MREs from different countries to find who has the tastiest?

A friend's brother who was in the service brought some home once and we tried them. Beat a lot of the stuff the Girl Scout leaders had us eating on camping trips.

Except the vegetarian ones -- whoo-ee! they're dreadful.

I always ate 'em heated in their clever chemical warming sacks. The instructions on the package make sure that ANYONE can heat them successfully, directing the reader to "lean them against a rock or something" while illustrating with a picture of the heating packet leaning against a rock (or something).

Also, there's a lot there -- cookies, crackers, candy (the three Cs) as well as a milkshake and main meal and the cutest little bottles of hot sauce you ever saw (about an inch tall, with three spluts of hot sauce in 'em).

The problem for someone of multi-decade age like myself is that they apparently provide the caloric intake required for a 19-year-old running up and down sand dunes in full gear all day long. Older guys (not taken to running up and down sand dunes) can get pretty fat eating more than one of 'em a day, and who want to eat only once a day?

in '91 before they got our kitchen set up. They sucked.

But they may be better now.

I wish I could. For some of my relatives, I wish I could plunk down a foil package in front of them and say, "Here's your dinner." :-)

-MR

you got your meal, a secondary, usually applesauce, a snack bread or crackers, a desert bread (cookies or pound cake from panera bread) a drink mix or 2 (the only drinkable milkshake is the strawberry, than they have fruit drink mixes kile kool-aid only better, i'll kill for a packet of the cherry) and a candy (tootsie rolls, skittles and charms were the most common) and a survival pack, with gum, coffee, TP matches, moist toweletts, mint gum, salt, sugar, creamer, and sometimes apple cider or cocoa mixes

if you had to eat c-rations...gawd-awfull.
I actually like MRE's, you see, I have eaten the ones they replaced.

my dad used to bring them home now & then when I was younger, and my friends and I would take them hiking, etc... some of the things were dreadful, others were really not so bad

that was back when everything was still in cans, and the can-opener was this tiny thing that took 10 minutes to do the job

I wouldn't stock my shelves with MRE's, but if I were trying to survive in the wild with them, I wouldn't starve anyway

without that, there is NO flavor whatsoever.

but I don't have any desire to eat them again now that I'm a civilian. I was in the Air Force for six years and had my fill of them.