# MRE Questions



## HamiltonFelix (Oct 11, 2011)

I have eaten a few fairly old MREs. OK it's been a little while since I ate any in the dark brown pouch where the package of M&Ms said "proud sponsor of the 1992 Olympics."  I have never seen a "spoiled" MRE. My impression is that they gradually lose flavor (palatabillity), thus the tiny bottle of Tabasco; with enough Tabasco you can eat cardboard.

Do they ever actually rot/spoil/go bad?

Does that loss of flavor reflect loss of nutritional value? I wouldn't be able to tell by just rarely eating one as a field lunch (flavor or not, it is filling), but it would be good to know. 

Original military MRE cases are marked with an inspection date. I forget, is that 5 years after manufacture? How do you inspect an MRE? If it has been sitting for years, but you don't know at what temperatures, how can you inspect/evaluate something sealed in a new appearing package?

I don't have a lot of MREs, but I wonder if the ones I have should be rotated. Also, there is a variety of new civilian MREs, but the military ones have dried up. How does one choose?


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## horseman1946 (Oct 19, 2011)

*MREs*

I have 100s of MREs dating back to the early 90s, I have yet to find a bad one. I believe shelf dates are a company's way of selling more product.


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## oldvet (Jun 29, 2010)

If they are stored at "normal room temp." it's anyone's guess as to how long they will remain good. If I had some from the 90's and they were still edible, I would use and replace them over time or as you can afford to do so.


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## HamiltonFelix (Oct 11, 2011)

I have never seen an MRE that wasn't edible - if you don't mind rather bland food. I do wonder if the vitamins, minerals and nutritional value remain after a decade or two. 

And, of course, I wonder about the best presently available replacements.


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## GaryS (Nov 15, 2011)

I've eaten lots of C-rations that were over 30 years old, and except for a couple of items they were as good as the day they were packed. In other words...they were pretty bad!
MREs have the advantage of modern preservation techniques and should last as long or longer than C-rations. 

That said, I only have about a thirty day supply of MREs that are about two years old, and If there is no need for them,I'll rotate them in a couple more years, mostly because the first question I'd have is the quality of their nutritional value.


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## VoorTrekker (Oct 7, 2012)

MRE's stored at 0 degrees to -10 will be as fresh as nearly new for 15 years. After being removed from the freezer, they slowly degrade, but will last as nutritious unless subjected to adverse heat. 

The main meal foil should be slightly pliable or very pliable. 

If the foil wrapper is torn or punctured, or it is expanding and firm it is unsafe.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

I have seen MRE's go bad, and it's not pretty. Smell tells you a lot, taste tells you a lot too. Storage conditions are everything. But I stopped buying MRE's and now I just make my own with a 3 year use 'em or toss 'em rotation.


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## readytogo (Apr 6, 2013)

*MRE`s info*

To give troops something to eat on the go, the team at Natick came up with the First Strike Ration, or FSR -- pocket sandwiches and snack food that can be eaten throughout the day. One FSR has 3,600 to 3,900 calories and is packed with energy boosters like nutrition bars, electrolyte beverages and caffeinated gum. One FSR is equal to three MREs.
The military uses the three-year shelf life to maintain its "war reserves." But mre`s will last a lot longer only in proper storage conditions, just like any food items, spoil food will ferment creating gases there for expanding the container but there aren't a whole lot of things on the shelf that last for three years at 80 degrees Fahrenheit. You can get more information from the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center (NSSC).
Mre`s info.
http://www.worldgrocer.com/v/mres/about-mres/ingredients-nutrition.htm


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## VoorTrekker (Oct 7, 2012)

Sentry18 said:


> ...But I stopped buying MRE's and now I just make my own with a 3 year use 'em or toss 'em rotation...


Recipes or it never happened!


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

There's an old thread on it around here somewhere. OldCoothillbilly got me going on it. An average homemade MRE would include a menu like 2-3 servings of dehydrated chili, canned chunk chicken (with pullback lid), crackers, peanut butter, high-energy granola bars, powerade drink mixes, powerade electrolyte boosters, tea bag, hard candy, sugar, salt, pepper, spork, antibacterial moist towellettes, nitrile gloves, ibuprofen, tums, multivitamin, chewable vitamin C, water purification tablets, matches, small packet of dryer lint, a couple coffee filters and anything else that I acquire or feel like throwing in there when I'm making them. I use my vacuum sealer to make several small individual pouches and then seal them altogether in a large pouch. Each pouch has a small notch cut into the side so I can be torn open by hand. Most of them average around 3500 calories. I also make homemade SRE's (snack ready to eat). They contain only foods were you can open the package and instantly consume.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

Found it. I guess a different member got me started, OldCoothillbilly help me take it to the next level. I have since improved my menu and have some for different purposes. I think all told I have about 40 HMRE's and 20 SRE's.

http://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f36/i-am-going-make-some-mres-weekend-16224/


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## HamiltonFelix (Oct 11, 2011)

Wow, lots of ideas. On the original questions, it sounds like there is not one answer to MRE shelf life- too many variables. And nutrition after years is a guess, though they would probably sustain life for a while.

The homemade MRE thread is interesting. I'll share it with my wife. She is a big user of the vacuum sealer, and of late has really been experimenting with the Excalibur dehydrator we bought.

The actual MRE is a bit of a unique item to me. It has *everything* there, ready to eat. It is 100% complete, no other item needed. A backpacker would shudder at the weight and quantity of garbage, but it's great for anyone with a vehicle to carry the weight, and there's no need to find water, build a fire, light a stove or anything. BTW a few years ago I picked up a case with two gross of the water activated heaters.

Talking just now with my wife, it seems she has been assembling items with a mind to making up our own field rations.  One jump ahead of me as usual. We live in the mountains of western Washington on the Skagit river. In this country, one can always find water. Dehydrated rations make sense. I will still keep a couple of MREs in the back of the car.

It sounds like a good DIY ration for this area might balance dehydrated cooked food needing only a bit of hot water (Wifey had fun making "hamburger rocks") with some pilot bread, dried fruit and protein bars, and a bare minimum of "wet" foods. I like the idea of including a multivitamin.

My wife thinks the FoodSaver vacuum bags would tolerate being tossed into boiling water to heat. She also says we should be able vacuum seal our own little peanut butter packs.

I still want a few MREs for the narrow purpose they serve, but I'm not carrying many on my back.

Back around 1970 and 72 I ate rations while on fire crews. They came in square gray cardboard boxes, everything in little tins, a P38 can opener included. I remember opening little OD tins of peanut butter, cans of pound cake, etc. They were not exactly brand new when we got them, but they were still mostly OK. I even carried a couple of those rations and a bedroll in my car for a year or two afterward, "just in case." Were those C or K rations? I think the K ration was the crappy rations my late buddy ate in the Pacific islands in WWII.


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## tc556guy (Apr 28, 2011)

I've seen individual MREs where the pouches lost their integrity and spoiled and the entire MRE pouch was swollen like a bad balloon.
OP is right in that for the most part the MREs show their age by the contents simply drying out or becoming unpalatable.

I do recall being on one range years after the old brown MREs had been replaced by the tan packaged ones. We were being re-supplied and someone thought we deserved to get a whole case of the old brown packaged MREs. They were clearly years out of date and to make matters worse they'd been contaminated with diesel fuel. They smelled and tasted like diesel.
Thankfully I always had a couple of MREs in my ruck for emergencies so I just ate those until a proper resupply of newer MREs came down with the re-supply runs.


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