Friday, April 25, 2008

MRE: Meals-Ready-to-Eat

A friend from U.S. gave us MRE yesterday. It’s my first time to see one of those and I’m quite excited to see what’s inside the package. I’m really curious about this food’s life span. Imagine you can store it for 10 years! Yes, and even more than that! It has an excellent packaging to withstand rough conditions and exposures to elements. Amazing right? Hmmm ….. I wonder if there could be scarcity of food, people would definitely search for this. Unfortunately these are not available in public and it was also prohibited to sell on Ebay because of the risk from the heaters and matches inside the package. They cannot be shipped by certain carriers. I did some research because I find MRE quite intriguing.

MRE or Meals, Ready-to-Eat is said to be a self contained meals which is the current operational ration for U.S. military. It provides all the necessary nutrition soldier needs to sustain themselves. You will see the nutrition facts on each package. MRE comes with different menus. Currently it has 24 different menus to choose from but they make changes every year.

What’s inside MRE? You will find these things inside the package:

  • The entrée – these are the main course
  • Side dish – it could be rice, potatoes, corn or some other types.
  • Cracker or Bread – I got scone cinnamon last night and cracker w/ apple butter
  • Dessert – cookies or pound cakes
  • Beverages – it maybe a coffee, tea, drink mixes, cocoa or dairy shakes
  • Seasonings – I got cute Tabasco last night J
  • Accessories – condiments such as creamer, sugar, salt, wet wipes, spoon, matches, gums
  • Candies – it could be Skittles, M&Ms, or Tootsie Rolls
  • FRH – Flameless Rational Heater, used to heat the entrée. (The part I’m curious about)
For those who want to find out how FRH works. I searched one from Youtube.


We tried the Cheese and Vegetable Omelet from 2007 menus. It comes with the omelet, hash browns with bacon, toaster pastry crackers, cinnamon scone, apple butter, sugar free beverage, seasonings and accessories.




No comments: