10+ year old MREs, the good, the bad, the ugly.

T

Toxie

Joined
Nov 5, 2007
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Well, It's time to rotate stock here and I have a case of MRE's thats 1999 production.

I'll list the results as I go through them, and we'll see whats winners and whats losers. For the record, I'm smelling everything, following the .gov guide to probable defects and only eating teaspoon size samples as MOST.

1. Vegetable pasta meal, containing a munch bar, nature valley granola bar, pineapples, and crackers/PB.

The pasta was more paste-like then tomato sauce, but otherwise was wholesome and tasted normal.
The pineapple smelled fermented and was caramel colored. I passed.
The munch bar peanuts smelled rancid, and when licked tasted off. I passed.
The nature valley bar appeared fine and tasted about 6/10 compaired to a new one.
The crackers smelled slightly stale, but tasted OK - about like an unsalted saltine can taste :). The peanut butter was OK - bland-ish but otherwise unspoiled.
 
You are courageous, but fermented caramel pineapple are a delicacy somewhere in the world... somewhere....

Have a go and report back!
 
I've eaten a 10 year old MRE. There was no "good", just bad and ugly. However, it didn't make me ill.
 
Believe it or not, the Nature bally bar/Peanut butter was good (but not jiffy lol) :).

2. Boneless Pork Chops, Spiced apples, cheese spread, vegetable crackers, chocolate mint pound cake, lemon-lime beverage mix.

Spiced apples were very dark (and per the DCHP site, bad) but smelled a tiny bit off. I passed.
Cheese spread was very dark (like that tiny cheese plug that forms on spray cheese after you've used it once) but did smell good. I wasn't brave enough to eat a dairy product that old however.
Crackers were A-OK other then being tasteless.
The Pork chop looked fine, smelles appatising and the only apparent aging was that the sauce had gone a bit paste-like. The pork was OK, the noodles were OK and the sauce was OK. MRE's were never gormet but the entree was edible.
The chocolate pound cake was very dry, but otherwise tasted/smelled OK.
 
Thanks for reminding me to rotate my disaster foods. Gotta dump my "well-aged" MREs.
 
In the late 70's I ate some WWII era sea rations...The canned meat was bone dry and not edible, but the rest of the stuff didn't make us sick (except for the smokes... us cub scouts should have laid off on the unfiltered cigs:barf:)
 
From the internet, I give you this...

For those of us who have "endured" Meals-Ready To Eat (MRE's) and for anyone who has ever heard of them and wondered what they were like, this is a classic:

ARMY RANGER DATE

I had a date the other night at my place. On the phone the day before, the girl asked me to "Cook her something she's never had before" for dinner.

After many minutes of scratching my head over what to make, I finally settled on something she has DEFINITELY never eaten.

I got out my trusty case of MRE's. Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Field rations that when eaten in their entirety contain 3000+ calories. Here's what I made:

I took three of the Ham Slices out of their plastic packets, took out three of the Pork Chops, three packets of Chicken-a-la-King, and eight packets of dehydrated butter noodles and some dehydrated/rehydrated rice. I cooked the Ham Slices and Pork Chops in one pan, sautéed in
shaved garlic and olive oil.

In another pot, I blended the Chicken a-la-king, noodles, and rice together to make a sort of mush that looked suspiciously like succotash. I added some spices, and blended everything together in a glass pan that I then cooked in the oven for about 35 minutes at 450 degrees.

When I took it out, it looked like, well, ham slices, pork chops, and a bed of yellow poop. I covered the tops of the meat in the MRE cheese (kinda like Velveeta) and added some green sprinkly thingys from one of my spice cans (hey, if it's got green sprinkly thingys on it, it looks fancy, right?)

For dessert, I took four MRE Pound Cakes, mashed 'em up, added five packets of cocoa powder, powdered coffee cream, and some water. I heated it up and stirred it until it looked like a sort of chunky gelatinous organism, and I sprinkled powdered sugar on top of it.

Voila! Ranger Pudding.

For alcoholic drinks, I took the rest of my bottle of Military Special Vodka (yes, they DO make a type of liquor named "Military Special"--it sells for $4.35 per fifth) and mixed in four packets of "Electrolytes - 1 each - Cherry flavored" (I swear, the packet says that). It looked like an eerie kool-aid with sparkles in it (that was the electrolytes I guess... could've been leftover sand from Egypt).

I lit two candles, put a vase of wildflowers in the middle, and set the table with my best set of Ralph Lauren Academy-series China (that shit is freaking EXPENSIVE... my set of 8 place settings cost me over $600), and put the alcoholic drink in a crystal wine decanter.

She came over, and I had some appetizers already made, of MRE spaghetti-with-meatballs, set in small cups. She saw the dinner, saw the food, and said "This looks INCREDIBLE!!!"

We dug in, and she was loving the food. Throughout the meal, she kept asking me how long it took me to make it, and kept remarking that I obviously knew a thing or two about cooking fine meals. She kind of balked at the makeshift "wine" I had set out, but after she tried it I guess she liked it because she drank four glasses during dinner.

At the end of the main course, when I served the dessert, she squealed with delight at the "Chocolate mousse" I had made. Huh? Chocolate what? Okay... yeah... it's Chocolate Moose. Took me HOURS to make...yup.

Later on, as we were watching a movie, she excused herself to use my restroom. While she was in there, I heard her say softly to herself "Uh oh" and a resounding but petite fart punctuated her utterance of dismay.

Let the games begin.

She sprayed about half a can of air freshener (Air Freshener, 1 each, Orange scent. Yup. The Army even makes smellgood) and returned to the couch, this time with an obvious pained look.

After 10 more minutes she excused herself again, and retreated to the bathroom for the second time. I could hear her say "What the hell is WRONG with me???," as she again sent flatulent shockwaves into the porcelain bowl.

This time, they sounded kinda wet, and I heard the toilet paper roll being employed, and again, LOTS more air freshener.

Back to the couch. She smiles meekly as she decides to sit on the chair instead of next to me. She sits on my chair, knees pulled up to her chest, kind of rocking back and forth slightly. Suddenly, without a word, she ROCKETED up and FLEW to the bathroom, slammed the door, and didn't come out for 30 minutes.

I turned the movie up because I didn't want her to hear me laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my cheeks.

She came out with a slightly gray pallor to her face, and said "I am SOOOOOO sorry. I have NO idea what is wrong with me. I am so embarrassed, I can't believe I keep running to your bathroom!!" I gave her an Imodium AD, and she finally settled down and relaxed.

Later on, she asked me again what I had made for dinner, because she had enjoyed it so much. I calmly took her into the kitchen and showed her all the used MRE bags and packets in the trash can.

After explaining to her that she had eaten roughly 9,000 calories of "Army food" she turned stark white, looked at me incredulously, and said "I ate 9,000 calories or dehydrated food that was made 3 years ago?" After I concurred, she grabbed her coat and keys, and took off without a word.

She called me yesterday. Seems she couldn't shit for 3 days, and when she finally did, the smell was so bad her roommate could smell it from down the hall. She also told me she had been working out nonstop to combat the high caloric intake, and that she never wanted me to cook dinner for her again, unless she was PERSONALLY there to inspect the food beforehand.

It was a fun date. She laughed about it eventually, and said that that was the first time she'd ever crapped in a guy's house on a date. She'd been so upset by it she was in tears in the bathroom while I had been in tears on the couch.

I know, I'm an asshole, but it was still a funny night."
 
i once ate a MRE from a surplus store.....dated 1978. It was 1990 when i bought the kit....the crackers and jam were just fine, the coffee was great, but the main course (beef stroganaf) was "stale" and somewhat slimy.......yet salty and chewable.
 
Tired on a field exercise I'd traded into the Beef Stew MRE I really wanted. Sadly I had no Cheese Spread to add into the mix with the Tobasco. All I had was the Peanut Butter & no one wanted to trade. Digging through my gear I found a packet of Cheese Spread from who knows when. Opened it & it was a glop of gray matter covered in oil.

Still tasted like cheese so I poured it in & stirred it around.

Makes my stomach do flips thinking about it now, but I really wanted Cheese Spread at the time.
 
Had been wanting to get some mre's for some time now and after some good advice here I did. I ordered a case of sopakco's plus some breakfast sausages. I must say the few I have tried so far were amazing. We grew up with a vietnam vet dad who thought stopping at the army surplus store and grabbing some mre's for lunch every once in a while was a good idea, most of them expired and nasty but you couldnt tell him that he said to toughen up LOL. They sure do seem to have come a long ways just in my life time. Joel
 
For what they're asking for those things,they should last 50 yrs..I still remember the older C-rats when I first went in,aahhh the poundcake and pears!
 
I've eaten some old MREs before in 2006 that were dated 1984. The crackers were fine and any freezedried items were ok. The cheese was rancid and chicken a la king looked odd but smelled ok and tasted fine.
 
The pork chop meal was one of the worst! I think it was with Jamaican sauce. Maybe the hot dogs were the worst, not sure. Your description sounds about right, even when 'fresher'. While I was stationed in Korea I had M&M's that were from 1986 Olympics, this was in '96-97. I think these might be good forever...maybe, and the crackers were always stale. Most thought I was off but I liked the tuna with noodles.
Paul

Ps do these have the heaters? You can have fun with these..
 
Halfneck said:
Tired on a field exercise I'd traded into the Beef Stew MRE I really wanted. Sadly I had no Cheese Spread to add into the mix with the Tobasco. All I had was the Peanut Butter & no one wanted to trade. Digging through my gear I found a packet of Cheese Spread from who knows when. Opened it & it was a glop of gray matter covered in oil.

Still tasted like cheese so I poured it in & stirred it around.

Makes my stomach do flips thinking about it now, but I really wanted Cheese Spread at the time.
Click to expand...

Beef stew is my favorite so far.
 
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