Meals Ready to Eat - Military Style Survival Food

MREs or Meals Ready to Eat are military style survival food. Large camping supply stores and hunter’s stores will stock these. The web has over 305,000 vendors that carry these items. Most have a shelf life averaging 5 to 7 years. There were also K and C rations for the military. These are really OLD and were not very good when they were new. Stay away from them.

Meals Ready to Eat are also available with heaters. All you do is simply add water, wait and magically a hot meal will emerge. There is no fire hazard. Actually these are reasonably good and tasty. But like everything else, they lose their appeal with frequency of consumption. Remember, these are designed to keep you alive. You are not dining at a five star restaurant.

MREs come in a wide variety for different tastes. The date of manufacture also determines the menu selection. In 1995, they came in a dark brown bag and there were only 12 items to select from. The 1996, the new tan bags increased the selection to 16 items. In 1997, the number became 20. The different items today are 24 and they also change the selection from year to year.

The only item that is not packaged in plastic is hot sauce. It continues to be packaged in a small glass container. I guess it ate the plastic.

The one thing to be cautious of is the expiration date. The really old packages are dark brown and made up until 1995. Starting in 1996, the bags are tan.

Decoding the date is easy. The first digit is the year. The next three numbers are the day the meal was packed. For example, the box shows 1068. Translated, it means 2001, March 9th.

Some packaging will have an inspection date that is typically 3 years AFTER the packed date. All the dates are packaged dates and not expiration dates. If these meals are stored in a 60 degree environment, the shelf life is almost indefinite. Just remember if it smells or taste bad, do not eat it.

This discussion pertains to military Meals Ready to Eat. There are also civilian meals and they are packaged differently. The cost of these meals averages $10.00 per day per person.



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