I'm an Air Force veteran so we usually had good food at the chow hall. When I was in Saudi after the attack on the Khobar Towers we moved to a tent city in the desert. The food at the chow hall was gross the first few months, I suppose it was okay for Army/Marine's but it sucked for my delicate Air Force taste buds. We all voluntarily ate MRE's until they forced us to stop and eat the slop at the chow hall. There are some good MRE's out there but nasty ones too.
--Jason--
Good point on first page of discourse: test 'em out. Make a night of it, throw in some beer and have a taste off. Then make a reserve buy. Biggest complication with Mountain House (who used to make mil' LRRP meals) is having to heat water to add too rehydrate. No big deal in many places (hotel microwave, hot pot, etc) but this provision will need to be made.
Mountain House has a line that is low packaging, maybe the "pro" meals? Dunno, but they take up less room than an MRE and generate less trash (if that's a concern).Originally Posted by wvincent
I'm honestly not that familiar with the competition out there right now but have actually enjoyed the MH meals I've eaten backpacking, as has my son.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
Yeah, that's how I understand it. At times some of these MRE websites are pretty empty on stock, because even the commercially marketed products are spotty production runs.
The MREs you get on the commercial market (even if not DOD production overrun) are usually made by the .mil vendors, but what's inside can vary greatly if it's not made for the DOD contract.
@LtDave mentioned TheEpiCenter, and I've ordered from there before without problems. If you check out their page for full meal cases, it looks like they have some fairly new DOD contract production overrun, which ensures you get the heater and a full accessory pack (hot sauce, spoon, wet naps, shit paper) which is of obvious value if your guys are away from utensils, amenities and whatnot. Note that you can also get vegetarian cases (if needed), but that the commercial market (non-DOD contract) vegetarian cases don't come with the side dish and thus lose a few hundred calories. Whether that's important or not is up to you to decide.
I would definitely get the ones with the heaters. MREs are noticeably better when heated.
As for how good they are, at my current job about half of us are former military. I've only ever heard military guys complain about MREs, likely because troops just like to bitch for no other reason than bitching, regardless of the truth. It's literally just canned food, except the can is a flexible retort pouch instead of a rigid can. All the non-military people were actually surprised that they weren't as bad as all the vets made them out to be. Another part of that being menu selection; most of the menus these days are better than years past....process of elimination, all that.
I've never had to live on Heater Meals. I just know that's what CBP feeds detainees. I don't think they come with everything you need to sustain yourself, though, so if you buy those you might have to buy your guys paper towls, utensils, etc as well, which is just sort of a PITA......especially when something needed gets left behind at the job site or whatever, whereas with a sealed DOD-spec'd MRE pouch you will have everything you need short of fresh underwear.
ETA: I'm the guy at work that keeps Bridgeford beef taco "MRE sandwiches" in his go bag and gets made fun of for it, and when we get stuck in the vehicle in a secure area and unable to get food I end up feeding everyone who doesn't have shelf-stable food and is bitching about how hungry they are.
Last edited by TGS; 09-05-2019 at 05:38 PM.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
Mind you, current production MREs, which were being issued during my second deployment, were revamped quite a bit, including on breakfast options. The menu additions were things like biscuits, sausage, brisket?, and unlabeled Mountain House blueberry granola with milk powder. They were much better than the previous generation I mentioned earlier and a little more interesting than Heater Meals, but I think the design for Heater Meals leaves less potential for tired and surly personnel to ratfuck the boxes and just eat whatever entree they grab first.
From the perspective of having eaten at the end of a long workday, I'd suggest adding a couple things that require less preparation if you can, like those Smuckers Uncrustables, Gatorade/Ensure/etc nutrition shakes, and Clif bars.
Last edited by Yung; 09-05-2019 at 06:00 PM.
MREs improved significantly when I was in. The old dark brown wrapper ones gave way to the light tan wrapper ones. Better taste, more options, etc. I haven't had an MRE for 15-ish years so I would hazard they've likely improved again.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
By the way, @wvincent, it's great that you're trying to look out for your guys. Most employers would just take the, "Sounds like a 'you' problem" route.
One of my best friends just quit the border patrol after 11 years. I asked him about the heater meals, figuring CBP fed them with heater meals when agents go to their FOBs (he used to staff Papago Farms FOB, for our BPAs on the forum).
Nope. They were told to fend for themselves, a day's worth drive from civilization. Since there wasn't enough fridge space, he just brought some cottage cheese for his allotted fridge space and a shit ton of tuna cans.
Dude has literally been living on cottage cheese and tuna for a week at a time, many times a year, for the last 11 years. Here's the real kicker: regardless of being "deployed" away from home/civilization, they didn't get per diem. No idea how the fuck CBP gets away with that shenanigan, it's fairly straight forward in federal regulations that people being required to stay away from home are to be paid per diem.
No wonder people quit that agency in droves.
So, good on you.
Last edited by TGS; 09-05-2019 at 06:19 PM.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
@TGS Good point on the complete meal kit.
".....especially when something needed gets left behind at the job site or whatever," yeah, sounds like you've met my guys
You know, for as many times as my guys have seen me use CRKT eatin tool when no other utensils were available, you know how many have gone out and bought one? That's right, nada, not a one.
So, watching my guys eat spaggetti with their dirty hands because they "misplaced" aka fuckin lost their utensils isn't something I want to endure.
So, yep, complete kit it is!
Those MRE Taco sandwiches look pretty good, some of those are going in my road bag, for 'just in case".
ETA: Just saw your post, the first question they asked was "is this coming out of our per diem?"
Nope. Believe me, that was the first question the office floated when I told them about my plan. Just NO.
Last edited by wvincent; 09-05-2019 at 06:22 PM.
"And for a regular dude I’m maybe okay...but what I learned is if there’s a door, I’m going out it not in it"-Duke
"Just because a girl sleeps with her brother doesn't mean she's easy..."-Blues
Nah, I'm one of them.@TGS Good point on the complete meal kit.
".....especially when something needed gets left behind at the job site or whatever," yeah, sounds like you've met my guysbeen there, done that. In the end you can squeeze the food out of the MRE pouch, but it gets annoying.
The beef taco is much better than the pork BBQ taco, FWIW.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
Chili with beans FTW (as long as its got the trans fat free brownie or the corn bread) I am a connoisseur of MREs. I like the Southwest/Mexican themed ones the best. Mexican chicken stew, southwest beef and beans, beef taco and the new chicken burrito bowl are all solid as well.
Some folks are more concerned about what the side dishes are, but those tend to rotate and change on a somewhat regular basis. Usually the vegetarian ones have peanut butter and the others have cheese, but not always. The holy grail of sides is most definitely the chocolate covered Ranger Bar, but I haven't seen one of those in a while.
Other solid choices are the beef stew(a classic), chili and macaroni, bbq shredded beef, and the hash brown one. The pizza MREs are out, but I haven't had one and from what I've heard they're not good. Some main meals taste better with the cheese heated up and mixed in. Also consider mixing the non dairy creamer in to the main meal to thicken it up.
If you're wanting some serious calories, some main meals mixed together are good as well. A good example would be the cheese tortellini and the meatballs with marinara. Neither are that great on their own, but mixed together, they're excellent. Chili with additional meat from the beef taco is a solid choice as well.
I don't really know much about the commercial type MREs, but I'm sure they're way better. Mountain house is always mentioned as being good. The best foreign MREs I've tried are the Swedish ones. They've got breakfast, lunch and dinner and all manner snacks in between.
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