Military food has a well deserved wretched reputation ... yet those who make the comparison invariably find it superior to Moosechelle's School Lunches.
I'd rather eat MRE than eat the stuff pictured in this thread.
MREs are not all that bad, high calorie by design but not bad. Neither were all C-Rats bad.
The chow hall food I had at most places was not at all that bad for the most part. The best were in AF mess halls and when I was late in my officer career I did ABNCP alerts and the contracted food service was really good. Having spent four years as a restaurant cook and doing a lot of the cooking at home over the years, I am somewhat picky so it has to be reasonably good for me not to like it.