MREs, Meals Ready to Eat, are three lies in one. They're not a 'meal', they're not ready and they are not edible - or so I, submarine qualified, hear.
Thankfully, we ate well by modern standards but not so well by traditional submarine standards. I wuz there for the transition from the traditional submarine mess to the new standardized Navy mess.
Actually they are not too bad, and that is speaking of the old MRE's circa 1990-1996. And when its 120 outside, sometimes I preferred a cold MRE rather than the hot chow at the mess tent.
I don't get this beefing about MRE's. I visited my brother when he was stationed in Korea, and he took me out on a night exercise with his platoon (he was the CO). We ate MRE's on the side of one of those famous steep Korean hills.
Mine was spaghetti and meatballs. So it didn't qualify for being set on a table with red-checkered table cloth somewhere in New York with a tenor singing in Italian...but it was no worse than Chef Boyardee.
And it was HOT -- unlike C or K rations before the MRE era, you put a little water in the pouch around the food pouch itself and a chemical reaction starts that heats the food. Hot food in the field is an improvement no matter how you slice it.
Just out of curiousity, what DID the Navy do when they transitions subs from the traditional submarine mess to the Navy standardized mess. I thought sub chow was the best in the Navy - has that changed. Been out a while and have not been on a boat in many years. . . .