Meals Ready to Eat (Or 'Meals Rejected By Ethiopians'?)

Fox News ^ | 3/31/07

[ThomasThomas]

Most vending machine food is worse. Once you begin to like vending machine food it is time to go back to a day shift.

[Colorado Mike]

Meals ready for Cavemen?

[B4Ranch]

I once got a green pack of Lucky Strikes out of a box of '47 C-RATS. To me the only thing edible was the peaches, stew and crackers. Tobassco Sauce was a requirement for everything else.

Now barbecued water buffalo, what a cook could do with that was unbelievable. Or those red assed rock apes, they were good to. C-4 was great for fishing in the rivers.

Glad that those days are just memories now!

[processing please hold]

That looks like something I saw staring back up at me after a night of partying.

[epaul]

1st issued MRE's = carried a bottle of tabasco at all times.

2nd issued MRE's = a little bottle in every mre, great improvement.

Do they still put the little bottle in them?

I think I was the only person in our Battalion that actually liked Chicken a-la king , with tabasco of course.

[Malacoda]

My dad served in the USMC, in Viet Nam. He not-so-fondly remembered C-rats, and called them by many colorful names. When I was three or four, I emulated him by asking if we were having "ham and motherf*****s for dinner.

I don't remember much after my mom bearing down on me with a wooden spanking spoon.

Dad and I were both in the doghouse for a while.

[El Gato]

Must be made by McDonalds: I could never figure out why the ubiquitous "McRib" was called so, since it ain't got no ribs in it

The process used by Mickey D to make the McRib was developed by the University of Nebraska College of Agriculture's Roger Mandigo, who is still there, around 1972, (back in the Dark Ages when I was an AFROTC cadet there) so it is likely available for other companies as well.

[SoldierMedic]

Your MRE also contains some tissue, maybe enough to wipe with (I've never been put in that situation, so I dunno), a small vial of Tobasco, a spoon, matches, salt, pepper, a moist towelette, and sometimes coffee, other times it's spiced apple tea.

[Vision]

What's the bottle for?

[radiohead]

I guess those guys are busier than than my neice was in Tikrit. She gained 20 lbs on MREs.

[Pox]

That's true, the crackers weren't all too bad. Those weren't really beans, were they?

But those dehydrated strawberries still give me nightmares!

[Yorlik803]

Same here I had the Meat patty surprise....the surprise was it looked like Gainsburger dog food. The oil it was encased in was the same weight as the 1030 i put in cars...
And the Sarge told me I was lucky i didnt get the lima beans and ham....

[epaul]

A little bottle of tabasco brand hot sauce , very much needed to eat the stuff.

[A knight without armor]

Right, it does go against the name but as Harmless said bones add weight and mass and some risk. I like the McRib albeit it is hard to come by anymore. I would not want a sandwich with bones in it. After all their Big Mac does not contain any Macs and my French fries always speak English. Mmmmm it's lunchtime.

[El Gato]

LOL, dammit, I tried so hard to forget those dehydrated imitation meat patties! And you're right, I don't care what the instructions said, you couldn't reconstitute those things in any way known to man, IMO.

Crumble them up, soak in boiling water, add chili powder for something I wouldn't call chili. However you could live on it, but it tasted like sh*t. (My one and only exposure to AF 'survival' rations, the type packaged into an ejection seat or parachute pack. You got enough for a couple of days. We had about 8 guys eating it, so it only lasted for a single meal. But it was only supposed to be enough to tide you over until until the choppers came or you could forage or kill something to eat.)

[Paulus Invictus]

How apout Cs left over from WW II?(OK, I'm from "that" generation). Even the starving Nips would not eat them. We wouldn't either. For a long while, we ate rice and fish, prepared by our Nip cooks. It was mainly awful stuff, but better than Cs. The only thing safe to drink in Japan was the coffee, boiled for days to kill all the germs, parasites and viruses in the so-called "pure" drinking water. Now that was strong coffee!

General MacArthur and company finally got some imported food to us, but it was cheese blocks and crackers. They tasted great! We took some along on a road trip north of Mt. Fuji and found some villagers who didn't know who we were or that the War was over. We gave them some cheese and crackers and they were amazed, having never seen or tasted either. They danced around laughing at us and our goodies. Ah, memories.

[Cvengr]

Here is an interesting compendium.

http://www.usariem.army.mil/nutri/milrat.htm

Instead of 1250 cal/MRE it suggests each MRE is 4044 cal/MRE IV.

I always thought the Cold Weather LRP was the high calorie meal, but am mistaken. It is shown at closer to 1553 cal/meal, but lighter weight.

See http://www.usariem.army.mil/nutri/appenda.htm

[xp38]

Cookie says there is too much complaining on this thread! :)

[Pox]

I don't think cookie ever inflicted the injustice of MRE's upon his troops, and even his reputedly interesting cooking would have been 5 star compared to the first round of those unholy creations.

[ctdonath2]

I get 'em at a nearby military surplus store by the case (about $65 for 12 - not bad for a day's eating). (Used to get 'em on-line, but ammoman.com stopped carrying them.) They're actually not bad; I eat 'em occasionally for fun & to rotate 'em. Comforting to have a couple handy at all times (car, travel, etc.) for quasi-emergencies. The trick is finding ones that look like post #18 - the real military ones marked "resale is unlawful" and have the heavy-duty brown spoon inside; there are lots of others masquerading as military MREs, and which may be fine, but "these aren't the MRE's you're looking for" (bad obtuse pun).

They taste fine in a pinch, boys love 'em, and it's just good to know you've got a day's meal in a long-term room-temp package.