Meal Ready to Eat (MRE)

[Rusty Shackleford]

so i got my hands on about 4 MREs a while ago and ive been eating them on days that i exercise(i havent got much in the way of groceries and they have so many nutrients!). Such a genius packet!

Veggie Crackers
some sort of fruit
sometimes peanut butter
and a wide variety of meals
plus, they cook themselves with just a little water and a bit of time.

plus the drink mix is not bad either.


fuck i wish i had more. im goign to be having my last one in a few minutes.

[Metacomet]

so i got my hands on about 4 MREs a while ago and ive been eating them on days that i exercise(i havent got much in the way of groceries and they have so many nutrients!). Such a genius packet!

Veggie Crackers
some sort of fruit
sometimes peanut butter
and a wide variety of meals
plus, they cook themselves with just a little water and a bit of time.

plus the drink mix is not bad either.


fuck i wish i had more. im goign to be having my last one in a few minutes.


Imperialist! :D

I keed I keed.

I've heard they aren't bad. And a superb way to control portions.

[The Douche]

Fruit? What, you mean the like, dried cranberries or whatever?

[Rusty Shackleford]

i mean 'fruit'


the cranberries go great on the crackers if you stick em on with peanut butter. i did that at work though. basically there was a shit ton of MREs and everyone just tore through and ate bits and pieces and left a bunch of shit. luckily i grabbed a few intact packs before everyone else got to em. no one ate the crackers and there was still some peanut butter and cranberries. gourmet MRE.

[S.Artesian]

so i got my hands on about 4 MREs a while ago and ive been eating them on days that i exercise(i havent got much in the way of groceries and they have so many nutrients!). Such a genius packet!

Veggie Crackers
some sort of fruit
sometimes peanut butter
and a wide variety of meals
plus, they cook themselves with just a little water and a bit of time.

plus the drink mix is not bad either.


fuck i wish i had more. im goign to be having my last one in a few minutes.


We called them "long rats" [ for rations] 40 years ago. Lighter and easier to carry then the old C and K category rations.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Need stuff like this, because
1) I need to watch my portions, and
2) I'm poor as fuck.

All other cheap shit at the store (see: rice, noodles, mac'n cheese) is filled with carbs (the last thing a diabetic needs).

[Martin Blank]

MREs were a genius creation. Just the right amounts of everything to maintain balanced nutrition and needed energy. Do beware of knockoffs, though.

[Rusty Shackleford]

the ones i have are TOTM's which are a step down from MREs but apparently they are for the National Guard. "training meals"

it just has 2 or 3 fewer components than a regular MRE kit.


as for getting them, they are pretty expensive i hear and also, gov't ones are illegal to sell.


FYI though, they have a fuck ton of sodium.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Need stuff like this, because
1) I need to watch my portions, and
2) I'm poor as fuck.

Do you know some place to get them on the cheap? They're fairly expensive everywhere I've ever seen them.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I was under the impression they were a cheap, healthy meal for some reason until Rusty's post. Super bummed.

[praxis1966]

Do you know some place to get them on the cheap? They're fairly expensive everywhere I've ever seen them.

Try surplus stores. There were several Army/Navy surplus stores in my hometown which sold them... Generally, they were sold because long-distance hikers/wilderness campers like them because they don't take up much space in a pack. Army surplus stores are great besides... Did you know that a lot of them sell gas masks? :D

[Magón]

What kind of job are you working, that the place hands out MREs?

[Fulanito de Tal]

MREs are also know as Mr. Es because what you're eating is a mystery, such as those clear gummy balls in the Chili Mac entree. They are also known as "butt plugs" because they tend to cause constipation. In 2003, there was an item called "chocolate pound cake" which my group would call "chocolate pound me in the ass cake" because we thought it gave you serious constipation, and it was a play on the "pound me in the ass prison" from Office Space. I don't know if it still exists. It is suggested that you not eat only MREs for more than 30 days straight. I don't know why, but this is what I was told and leaders ensured that this was followed.

[The Douche]

If anybody wants some MREs just let me know, I can easily snag them, you pay shipping and you can have them for free.


Keep in mind, they are chock full of sodium, and one complete MRE has enough calories for an entire active day.

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

Mre's are always awesome, my dad is in the coast guard and he gets some every once in a while, I loved the taryiki chicken one

[Rusty Shackleford]

If anybody wants some MREs just let me know, I can easily snag them, you pay shipping and you can have them for free.


Keep in mind, they are chock full of sodium, and one complete MRE has enough calories for an entire active day.
are there any legal issues with that? i know sale is illegal, but otherwise? (the only reason im asking is i dont want you getting into some shit for it)


What kind of job are you working, that the place hands out MREs?
im a government agent that monitors your subversives.


MREs are also know as Mr. Es because what you're eating is a mystery, such as those clear gummy balls in the Chili Mac entree. They are also known as "butt plugs" because they tend to cause constipation. In 2003, there was an item called "chocolate pound cake" which my group would call "chocolate pound me in the ass cake" because we thought it gave you serious constipation, and it was a play on the "pound me in the ass prison" from Office Space. I don't know if it still exists. It is suggested that you not eat only MREs for more than 30 days straight. I don't know why, but this is what I was told and leaders ensured that this was followed.


I think its only the cheese that does that. As for the MREs ive had though, none had cheese. I had Chicken & Noodles with Veggies, Imitation Boneless Pork Ribs (smoke flavor added) and Chili with Beans(massive farts :D)

all the meat is questionable. i mean, its like School Food, but possibly more questionable. As for the Calories and Sodium. dont eat these things like snack food. They are meant for lots of work(hence why i used them on exercise days). drink lots of water the day you eat these too just to be safe lol.


Try surplus stores. There were several Army/Navy surplus stores in my hometown which sold them... Generally, they were sold because long-distance hikers/wilderness campers like them because they don't take up much space in a pack. Army surplus stores are great besides... Did you know that a lot of them sell gas masks? :D

fuck i totally forgot about surplus stores. I had one of them radio-reflective(or whatever) camo-nets when i was younger. but, Gas Masks and possible MREs!!!

[PC LOAD LETTER]

In south Louisiana, they hand out MREs to people by the box during hurricane season. In 2008 I went back to live for about a year and lived off of these bastards for a while.

[Rss]

I've been interested of trying out MREs. Can't be worse than that horrible grub cooks threw together during conscription. Some people of mah platoon were begging for local versions of MREs (there still are canned foods) because logistics platoon was too slow to follow us during manouvers, their grub was generally quite bad and there was this one guy who had severe psoriasis and skin flakes were dropping to the field kitchen. Fucking disgusting.

Here's local military field ration:

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/1156/sissimuona.jpg

This includes crisp bread, two soup cans, tuna can, xylitol chewing gum to keep your teeth healthy, chocolate which tastes like shit, cocoa powder, instant noodles (are you kidding me?), tea, nescafe coffee, sugar, instant porridge, energy drink powder and disinfection swabs.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

I've been interested of trying out MREs. Can't be worse than that horrible grub cooks threw together during conscription. Some people of mah platoon were begging for local versions of MREs (there still are canned foods) because logistics platoon was too slow to follow us during manouvers, their grub was generally quite bad and there was this one guy who had severe psoriasis and skin flakes were dropping to the field kitchen. Fucking disgusting.

Here's local military field ration:

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/1156/sissimuona.jpg

This includes crisp bread, two soup cans, tuna can, xylitol chewing gum to keep your teeth healthy, chocolate which tastes like shit, cocoa powder, instant noodles (are you kidding me?), tea, nescafe coffee, sugar, instant porridge, energy drink powder and disinfection swabs.
If you find some MREs, don't eat the Manicotti. Gub'mint cheese at its worst.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Fucking hell your rations look like a banquet. probably heavy though and require fire huh?

any good uncooked?

[ellipsis]

If anybody wants some MREs just let me know, I can easily snag them, you pay shipping and you can have them for free.


Keep in mind, they are chock full of sodium, and one complete MRE has enough calories for an entire active day.

I don't understand why people are calling them a "good sized portion" I thought they were 3000 calories meals.

Start stocking up if you end up coming out to norcal, ill take as many MREs as you wanna bring.

[Rusty Shackleford]

The MREs i got are lower in calories and i think are meant to be eaten a few times a day for people who are doing training and all that.

TOTM

Tailored
Operational
Training
Meal

but it has almost all the MRE components.

[Rss]

Fucking hell your rations look like a banquet. probably heavy though and require fire huh?

any good uncooked?

Cans are only heavy ones and you can cook those soups (beef soup and pasta bolognese in this case) on hot engine. They are edible without heating, but yeah, we usually cooked stuff like that with fire. Or on diesel engine.

Sometimes we yoinked big packages of butter cheese from supply trunk. Those were good. Oh god, those were good when sitting inside a cold and cramped AFV. Some people almost fucking cried when one gunner got a big pack of the stuff.

[praxis1966]

fuck i totally forgot about surplus stores. I had one of them radio-reflective(or whatever) camo-nets when i was younger. but, Gas Masks and possible MREs!!!

Yeah, you can get just about anything in one of those places if you find the right one. I remember one back home used to get military paraphernalia from all over the world. You could've bought a complete Soviet infantry uniform in that joint, complete with one of those fuzzy hats... I never got into playing dress-up, but they had a lot of Soviet kitsch in there that I liked when I was still going through that phase. I still have a Soviet flag that's not a knockoff either that you can have if you want it next time you're in the Bay, I know it's authentic because the tag is in Cyrillic.

Beyond that, there was plenty of other cool shit to be had... I particularly admired their special forces knives; you know the kind that had the compass in the hilt and fishing tackle that stored in the handle? Yeah, dope indeed.

[Rusty Shackleford]

sounds like a possibility on that flag.


my ukranian friend has an old soviet party flag with lenin on it and then the coat of arms of the SU on the other side and a shit ton of writing on it. plus the gold frilly stuff.


as for the dressup, not my thing either. though i do like the hats. (i dont wear mine with insignia though)

well shit, im not working today, ive got nothing going on. maybe ill do some leaflet drop offs and scout out some surplus stores.

[o well this is ok I guess]

some sort of fruit uh

[Aloysius]

According to this site (http://www.thereadystore.com/mre/mre-supplies), a year's worth of MRE's is more than $5,000, with a shelf-life of 5 years.

Holy shit.

[Martin Blank]

If anybody wants some MREs just let me know, I can easily snag them, you pay shipping and you can have them for free.

I'm interested.

[The Douche]

are there any legal issues with that? i know sale is illegal, but otherwise? (the only reason im asking is i dont want you getting into some shit for it)

Not sure why you are under the impression sale of MREs is illegal, you can buy them at any surplus store, or online. I'm not gonna get in any legal shit, when we have drill there are boxes of MREs everywhere, we always carry a box or two in the humvee for whenever we get hungry, I'll just snag a few out of there at the end of drill.


I'm interested.

Word.


I don't have drill again until september, and I'm trying to avoid going to that drill cause I have something else to do. But after I have my next drill I'll send PMs to everybody who wants some.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Army Navy (surplus) stores in NYC are absurdly expensive. The ones I know in other states aren't really that cheap anymore either. If and when I've seen MRE's, they weren't cheaper than regular meals. They were more expensive.

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/ often has surplus for a lot less. But their MRE's are also expensive. ~ $6 for one MRE? That's not what I'd call cheap at all.

[S.Artesian]

Except the thing with MREs--- it's supposed to be enough to keep you alive, and fairly strong, in a single ration. Not designed for the grunt to eat 3 per day, but one per day.

[ellipsis]

I particularly admired their special forces knives; you know the kind that had the compass in the hilt and fishing tackle that stored in the handle? Yeah, dope indeed.

maybe cmoney will correct me, but these type of knives are poorly suited for survival/combat situation, not being full tang (blade is one piece of metal which extends to the end of the handle). thus they are not really sturdy enough for prying, chopping, etc. they are kinda gimicky.

[Blackscare]

I don't have drill again until september, and I'm trying to avoid going to that drill cause I have something else to do. But after I have my next drill I'll send PMs to everybody who wants some.

I'm down, I need to save some money. I can trade you pears or whole dried ducks, that's about the extent to what I have in abundance around here.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Except the thing with MREs--- it's supposed to be enough to keep you alive, and fairly strong, in a single ration. Not designed for the grunt to eat 3 per day, but one per day.

Yea, I know what they're intended for. But I still wouldn't consider $6 each that cheap. If you wanted to feed a family of four on those for a week, that'd cost you $168.

[Blackscare]

Yea, I know what they're intended for. But I still wouldn't consider $6 each that cheap. If you wanted to feed a family of four on those for a week, that'd cost you $168.

Which isn't very much for a family of four these days in a lot of circumstances. Food winds up being your biggest expense after rent and shit a lot of the time. :(

[Decolonize The Left]

maybe cmoney will correct me, but these type of knives are poorly suited for survival/combat situation, not being full tang (blade is one piece of metal which extends to the end of the handle). thus they are not really sturdy enough for prying, chopping, etc. they are kinda gimicky.

This is very true.

Your best bet for survival is a combination of tools:
- Small folding pocket knife with serrated blade
- Larger full-tang knife for general use
- Multi-tool
- Something like this (http://www.knifecenter.com/item/BO02BO300/) (they make it in a bigger size too for major shit)
- A pack with emergency supplies (like matches, first aid, etc...)
With these 5 items you should be more than equipped for whatever.

As for the MRE, I still fail to understand why you wouldn't just make your own food. Wouldn't it cost far less than purchasing individually packaged meals?

- August

[ellipsis]

This is very true.

Your best bet for survival is a combination of tools:
- Small folding pocket knife with serrated blade
- Larger full-tang knife for general use
- Multi-tool
- Something like this (http://www.knifecenter.com/item/BO02BO300/) (they make it in a bigger size too for major shit)
- A pack with emergency supplies (like matches, first aid, etc...)
With these 5 items you should be more than equipped for whatever.
- August

Well I'd include one of these, as long as we are packing heavy, whats an extra 2.5 lbs:

http://bwfirearms.com/GunPics/henryUS.JPG

[Decolonize The Left]

Tsk.. tsk... I wasn't counting firearms...

- August

[The Douche]

Yeah I am not a particularly big fan of rambo knives. My regular carry knife was this:

http://www.crkt.com/crkt/content/images_inv/c/a/284/CRM21-14SFG_xlarge_16631_full_284.jpg

But I left it on the hood of the humvee one day and it was probably snatched up by some private.

If I was gonna go in the woods with the intent of survival I would probably want a similar folder, a SOG tomahawk:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31ny8UAtq1L._SL380_.jpg

A whole shitload of 550 cord. (though the length in my bootlaces would suffice)

An emergency blanket.

And a reliable watch with compass on band.



I could make due with that, other helpful things would include a couple of fishing hooks, but I could make do with spear fishing, and around here there are plenty of little critters to snare. Strike anywhere matches and steel wool would be nice, but not an absolute necessity.

[Rss]

maybe cmoney will correct me, but these type of knives are poorly suited for survival/combat situation, not being full tang (blade is one piece of metal which extends to the end of the handle). thus they are not really sturdy enough for prying, chopping, etc. they are kinda gimicky.

I've always gotten a good chuckle out of all this survivalist knife fetish crap. They always have some kind of huge serrated anime sword as "tactical combat survival accessory". It always cracks me up. Mora knife does everything knife needs to do, it slices, it dices, it kills, it skins, it helps making fire wood, everything really. It costs like 5 euros so if you lose or break it, it doesn't matter. Not that it's fragile, well sharpened Mora lasts years.
http://bepreparedtosurvive.com/MoraClipperRed.CarbonSteelNew.jpg

[The Douche]

One of the other troops in my current squadron has its nickname as "Long Knives" (note, this is what the native american tribes of the west called the cavalry in the indian wars) and so all of them wear massive fucking goofy $100 rambo blades on their hips.

My troop outperforms them on a regular basis.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Which isn't very much for a family of four these days in a lot of circumstances. Food winds up being your biggest expense after rent and shit a lot of the time. :(

According to this sheet (http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2011/CostofFoodJun2011.pdf) (PDF) on the cost of food from the USDA, a family of four pays:

$123.10 weekly on a thrifty plan.
$156.50 weekly on a low-cost plan.
$193.00 weekly on a moderate cost plan.

I think these estimates are low. They're probably based on eating Hamburger Helper and meatloaf purchased from discount stores in in the middle of Iowa. Food where I am is absurdly expensive. But still, if you're going for cheap food (even here), I think you could get a lot more calories as a civilian by purchasing regular stuff instead of MREs. It would taste a hell of a lot better too.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Not sure why you are under the impression sale of MREs is illegal, you can buy them at any surplus store, or online. I'm not gonna get in any legal shit, when we have drill there are boxes of MREs everywhere, we always carry a box or two in the humvee for whenever we get hungry, I'll just snag a few out of there at the end of drill.



well shit then, im down. ill message you on facebook.


as for survival gear firearms.

a Tuffy 410 might work out. under $200 410Ga. breakbarrel shotgun. Stores 5 rounds in the stock and its TINY, 3lbs. You cant even shoulder it really, its like a pistol with a foregrip. very lightweight. never shot one though. but, i do sell em at the place i work.

probably good enough for small game or maybe a cat. dont think it will stop a cougar or a bear though.
http://personalsecurityzone.com/images/BRZS41118TUFlg.jpg

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

Are they cheaper than lunchables? Those are my MRE's.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Are they cheaper than lunchables? Those are my MRE's.
sounds like a good addition to protest kits.

[praxis1966]

sounds like a good addition to protest kits.

Along with plastic bags stuffed with vinegar soaked rags for those who can't afford the gas mask. Supposedly, the vinegar neutralizes CS gas to an extent. I can't say I've ever tried it, but according to Coogan in his book The Troubles, a gallon jug of white vinegar and a bucket full of rags was found under pretty much every kitchen sink for years in Northern Ireland.