But you can keep the concrete cracker!
Posted on 03/31/2007 8:03:55 AM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Meals Ready to Eat
By David Mac Dougall
Fox News
Sadr City, Baghdad — This was the final day of our Sadr City embed, and we realized we've become experts on military rations, or MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). They're full of calories and carbs, a Dr. Atkins nightmare. But they do the job, sustaining soldiers (and journalists!) in tough times. Inside, there are usually crackers and peanut butter or cheese spread; a main dish; a cookie or cake; and powdered drinks. After just a week, we have already decided which MREs are our favorites.
I like the pasta. Cameraman Michael Pohl likes the spare rib (which curiously contains no actual ribs — just a meat patty). Producer Nicola Sadler likes the beef enchiladas. We do a lot of swapping. I take Nicola's peanut butter; she prefers the cheese spread. Michael swaps chocolate mint cake for strawberry milkshake powder. It's really obvious which MREs the soldiers don't like; Cajun rice with beans, and jambalaya remain unopened.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Willie to Joe: "I coulda sworn some Krauts wuz usin' that cow for cover. Go wake up the cooks."
I got one after a hurricane and was baffled by it. Just had to wonder what the Afghans thought when we dropped them from the air.
I was in the Corps just after you. We still had ancient C-Rats that had to be used up before the MREs came in. I remember the B-1 can being the most useful thing for making a portable stove. I don't remember especially liking or disliking C-Rats, but then, I think the Ham and MFers were all gone by then. I don't recall having to eat them.
Things that I do remember about them include the super-useful 'John Wayne', 'S**t disks', John Wayne crackers, shaking my squad down for coffee packets (few of them drank coffee), taking the cans out of their boxes and packing them in spare socks inside your ALICE pack, and improvised tripwire triggers with a plastic C-Rat spoon and a clothes-pin. I also remember our Doc gassing himself out of a bunker at the range by cooking with Trioxane. :-)
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
1.)It is not a meal
2.)It is not ready
3.)It should not be eaten
.....or so we used to saw. Tuna casserole with help from hot sauce was my favorite.
But you can keep the concrete cracker!
The thing is that bomb calorimeters are a standard we have been using for measuring for awhile now so whether we used a different standard or not isn't really going to change consumption because the food itself doesn't change just how we would measure it.
I was in when the switch was made from c-rats to MREs and it wasn't long before we were longing for the "good old days", let me tell you. I hope they've improved those things.
Yeah, but they don't have Lucky Strikes inside.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
There's no doubt Cajuns love their cooking, and there's nothing that moves that they won't toss into a pot and cook with some zesty spices.
There's no telling what's in boudain.
My mother and dad lived in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War and they would go out to take paperback books to the trooops in the nearby desert guard posts.
The bored troops were very appreciative and wanted to trade rather than take charity. Mother accepted MRE's with HAM. No ham was one of the major problems with living in Saudi Arabia.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
"They need to bring back the Meatballs in BBQ sauce!
That is disgusting if they use BBQ sauce.
>>the avaerage athlete around 4500 when he is in training and doing excessive excercise.<<<
My favorite are some of the swimmers. Michael Phelps ate 8,000 calories a day training for the Olympics.
I remember those days. I had to take 2000 calorie shakes just to keep my weight constant. It's hard to make that adjustment once you hang up the ole Speedo. haha!
Ham and Limas, one tiny piece of ham and three of the largest Lima beens it's possible to grow, almost frightening in size.
My favorites were ham steak and pork loaf.
Where do you buy them?
After WW II stores opened up across the US that sold surplus Army and Navy stuff to the public -- ugly green, wooden lockers and wardrobes, filing cabinets, and canned FOOD. My father bought a whole case of hamburger patties in gravy packaged in olive green cans. Yuck! We had those for years because there didn't seem to be any way to cook them into something palatible.
Ditto...I still have one or two of those little can opener thingies in a drawer someplace.
I did like the little four-packs of ciggies, though.
Can someone tell me if MRE's come with any other necessities. C-rations used to contain a small bundle of toilet paper and a small pack of 4 cigarettes. Occasionally you would also get a couple of "stimulators, interdential" which were balsa wood toothpicks. Others contained a small can opener called a P-38 to open the cans with.
I'm sure they don't come with cigarettes anymore, but back in the olden days, we would share the C-ration cigarettes until they were gone. You knew you were getting low when you were down to the Kents.
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