MRE's shelf life

[Elm Creek Smith]

When I went through Basic Combat Training at Lost in the Woods in the State of Misery in 1975, we were getting C-Rats with cigarettes in them: dry, brown, nasty things. I collected them from the guys who didn't want them, then I showed them how to steam the cigarettes over a canteen cup of boiling water until they smoked almost like new. Then they wanted their cigarettes back. They got them back, too, and I ended up with John Wayne bars of chocolate and pound cake!

Oh, yeah. The C-Rats we were eating were dated 1945, but they had multiple re-inspection dates on them. Thirty-year-old C-Rations, and none of us died.

 

[Jestik]

Depends on how hungry you are.

 

[OldArmy]

Several of the ones I ate in Iraq had mold growing in the coffee packets, don't ask me how that happens in 130-140*F summer heat! Honestly though I always found the box milk that didn't need to be refrigerated more concerning. Oh and I still ate the MRE with no issues. I still have a case in the basement...sort of wish I had not given away two of them now :/ I have no concern in tearing one open and eating it, not for a loooooong time anyway.


P.S. I once found an MRE on the back of my M1070 HET that had a mini bottle of Tabasco sauce in it, that some how went poof. What do I mean by that? Well, the MRE had not been opened, and the condiment section had not either, nor had the mini bottle. It was just some how dried up inside.

 

[IronMLS72]

Where do you guys find these MRE meals and also, do they out perform the wise dehydrated foods as for a backup plan? If you do prefer the MRE type, can I ask why?

Thanks.

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[dennishoddy]

According to one of my military sources, they go through and inspect the MRE boxes to see if any meals are swollen or show obvious signs of deterioration, if not, they are recertified for another cycle. I know that when in RVN '68-69, we routinely ate C rats dated from the Korean war. Cigarettes were somewhat dry and stale, but none of us died from eating them. Now you understand why we all carried bottles of hot sauce with us..

I'll back up this statement 100%. Tobasco rocks! I've never broken the habit. There is a bottle in the console of my truck as we speak for those nasty fast food places to cover up their taste.

 

[pnuner]

Where do you guys find these MRE meals and also, do they out perform the wise dehydrated foods as for a backup plan? If you do prefer the MRE type, can I ask why?

They have their pluses and minuses.

+'s They contain their own water. You don't have to have water/heat to be able to eat them. They can be eaten "on the run" if need be. You don't have to stop, boil water let it sit for 15 minutes before you eat it. This may or may not be a plus but most MRE's are going to be higher in calories than say a package of Wise foods. An entire MRE is on average around 1,200 calories. A wise food meal is around 300-400 calories I think.

-'s They contain their own water. They are heavy/bulky. If you are on foot carrying a 3 day supply can weigh you down for the first couple of days. You can carry several dehydrated meals with the same weight as an MRE. Now the MRE can be broken down and made smaller but it will still weigh more than dehydrated. Shelf life is another problem with MRE. Depending on how they are stored the "recommended" shelf life is about 5 years where dehydrated is 10+ and storage conditions are not quite as critical

What I do in my get home bag is keep two broken down MRE's in case I need to eat in a hurry, then keep four Mountain house meals plus a few cliff bars. This will give me two meals a day and should keep me going for at least three days.

So if you are asking only about long term storage in a bug out or bug in location I would say go with dehydrated simply for longevity of storage. I say a mix of both is best though.

As to where to get them? That's a good question. There are lots on E-bay but you have to be careful about dates. I have heard very good things about armygear.net, I have ordered from beprepared.com with good luck. There are tons of places to get them from but they are $$ and you have to watch shipping costs also.

 

[BadgeBunny]

First of all if you have anything that is Wise foods, go ahead and use it in your daily food rotation now. There are a bazillon studies out there that have proven that Wise's stuff is subpar when it comes to content and packaging ... I know the stuff I've had has a LOT more filler than substance and I wind up adding pasta and/or meat to the entrees to make them palatable ... DO NOT SALT OR SEASON THEM IN ANY WAY UNTIL YOU TASTE THE RECONSTITUTED PRODUCT FIRST ... Bleech ...

Now I dunno if "outperform" is the right word because they serve two different purposes ...

Around here MREs get gone through on a fairly regular basis ... GC has them in his patrol car and has taken armloads of them out with him when he's been on some sort of extended call-out for one thing or another. He and the other guys say they are better than nothing. He also takes them when he goes out for a day of hunting ... Easier to lug around and fix than anything I could put together for him, save a peanut butter and jelly sammich ...

If, like pnuner says, you are simply looking for long-term storage FD/DH is your better, nutritionally, storage-wise and in my opinion, taste-wise ...

Take note, if you switch from the typical American diet over to MREs or FD/DH foods without some kind of "transition time" you are gonna have digestion problems ... some folks they will plug up tighter than a cork in a wine bottle ... some folks ... well, some folks will have a serious case of the runs ...

I have things I gotta do today ... I'll come back and finish this tonight or tomorrow ... cuz I have some links for you ...

 

[IronMLS72]

Thank you both much for the information. There is nothing better than getting good intel from folks like yourselves that know and have used them both. I currently have some of the wise on hand so we had better get to eating some to see how how that's going to workout. Once I'm more comfortable with the dates on the MRE that pnuner spoke of I will aquire some of them to rotate in as well. Thanks again, and looking forward to getting the links...

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[BadgeBunny]

Now ... keep in mind that a lot of the links I am posting are comments from other FD/DH food suppliers about Wise products. That said, the problems individuals (myself included) have run into with Wise products (poorly packaged product, product being stale well before the expiration date, higher filler, salt and sugar content than other comparably priced products, etc.) are WELL documented on self-preparedness boards all over the internet ...

It is possible to package your own bulk goods for long term storage (years and years) with a minimum of equipment and expense ... all it takes is paying attention to what you are doing and starting with quality products. That said, I'm old and lazy ... I don't mind paying a little bit extra to have everything already put up in 10# cans ... not so much the big buckets anymore because I have noticed that I'm not quite as strong as I used to be ...

Anyway ... I digress ... as usual ...

Here's some links to get you started ...

http://www.foodstoragereviewer.com/mountain-house-rips-wise-company-over-oxygen-levels/

http://topfoodstoragereviews.com/wise-food-storage-review

(Yes, I know the first two are from the same .com ...)

http://learntoprepare.com/2012/07/fraud-exposed-regarding-preparedness-food-company-wise-foods-by-oregon-freeze-dry/

http://survivalacres.com/shop/content/14-why-not-wise-foods

Anyway, those 4 links are more than enough to get you started.

Just so you won't think I'm simply cutting and pasting articles without having actually used Wise products here are the problems I personally ran into:

1. Mylar bags that were not sealed properly, leaking product (and obviously, letting oxygen in).
2. In the instant oatmeal and maple syrup flavored pouch (bleech ... but GC's favorite) there was not enough oatmeal to make two 1/2 cup-servings, after sifting out the sugar, cornstarch and powdered maple flavoring even though the pouch stated it had 4 servings in it. There was, literally, a scant 2/3rds cup of oatmeal in the package ... Not 2 cups of oatmeal ...

I have taken the packages of instant oatmeal that I bought from Wise, opened them all up and added another 1 to 1 1/2 cups of regular Quaker Oats instant oatmeal to each of them and just fed GC his breakfasts from a big old jar of the stuff I keep under the counter. There is no way the oatmeal packets I bought from Wise would feed one person, especially not a person doing hard, physical labor, much less 4 people ...

Same thing with their mac and cheese packets ... Heavy on the cheese powder, light on the macaroni ... It is a running joke around here that I used up all our Wise stuff when I was too lazy to cook from scratch ... All I had to do was crack open a package, add 2 cups of macaroni, rice, or whatever carb was supposed to be the "meal" on the label and cook ...

One thing is for damned sure ... DON'T put any more salt or sugar in whatever you are making ... Wise sent you enough for 4 servings and then some ...

3. I did have some packets that we bought when Red Dawn was still around that were stale tasting when reconstituted, even though the expiration date on the packaging said it was still good ... like in several years away from the expiration date. All I can tell you is the chickens didn't seem to mind ...

 

[kroberts2131]

Not a hard fast rule by any means, but when I was in the Corps, we would open one or two from a case and if the tabasco had dried up any, the whole case got tossed. Just the rule one of our SNCO's had that we used.