MREs

zildjianc

zildjianc

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Jan 8, 2013
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Does anyone know the best place to purchas MREs. Looking to set up a get home bag.
Thanks, Steve
 
do you have gun and knife shows up there by you?? down here in Florida they are always selling them at the shows. if not then look for the army surplus stores where they sell the pants and other military stuff. they would probably have them there.
 
you need to check the date of them. I just found out that they are only good for so many years before they go bad due to age. I think that the light brown packages ones are the latest one out there.
 
Yep, I think most have a 3-5 year shelf life. Real military surplus ones can last longer, but they start to degrade and taste/look worse after time. I've heard of some being eaten 10-15 years late, and while not inedible, they're kinda nasty.


You can extend the shelf life a bit by keeping them chilled.


Some decent advice would be to keep a micro burner & cookpot with them, along with some salt and pepper and seasonings. Most of the dishes are only tasty if you're starving to death, so having a way to improve them is helpful.
 
I got told the shelf life is 10-15 years on the real ones for the military not the ones that they are making for the normal people.
 
zildjianc said:
Does anyone know the best place to purchas MREs. Looking to set up a get home bag.
Thanks, Steve
Click to expand...

http://shop.jetboil.com/index.php/sol-cooking-system.html

One of these and some relatively inexpensive quick cook options from the grocery store are a lot better IMHO. They are also a lot cheaper. It's also nice to have a cup of coffee or some hot tea in the middle of nowhere.

MRE's are a real last ditch SHTF thing for most civilians. They have gotten better over the years but, are still pretty nasty. After living 10 days with no water and no electricity, I can speak from personal experience that a few cans of corn, green beans, etc. (clean water and veggies), random cans of beer, soda, fruit juice and bottled water, with random crackers, cookies, etc. are more than enough. Some cans of ready to eat soup would have been nice ;).

With gasoline, most people drove out of the disaster area and went where the electrical water pumps, gas pumps, ATM's, etc all worked.
 
richard thurman said:
I got told the shelf life is 10-15 years on the real ones for the military not the ones that they are making for the normal people.
Click to expand...

It really depends on how they're stored. In a freezer, yeah. They'll last that long. If they sat at a base in Iraq for 6 months in 120*F sun, then you're looking at closer to 1-2 years. And overstock/surplus/unused stuff is the only way you'll get the real military issue rations, so there's no easy way to find out how long you've got left before they're unusable. It might have sat in a warehouse, or at a base in an unnoticed crate.
 
I've had MRE's that were past the expiration date and they were fine. But they were free. I wouldn't buy them if they didn't have at least a year or so left on 'em, depending when I planned on using them.
 
Thing about cans is they're heavy as hell if you're carrying them in a pack. And it takes quite a bit of them with most products to get sufficient calorie intake. And crackers are useless in a pack. They will be crushed to powder. Thing to do is cook your own meals at home and then dehydrate them. You can do this with a normal food dehydrator you would use to dry fruit or whatever. Then vacume seal them. This part might be more difficult as you need a vacume sealer machine. If you know someone that does a lot of canning or especially hunting and keeps their freezer stalked full of meat there's a good chance they may have one. The shelf life of these is theoretically until you unpackage it and add water. And you'll find a bunch of recipes on the web or youtube. Best part is all you gotta do is put the contents into boiling water at the camp site until it's absorbed back into the meal and it's just like it was before it went into the hydrator at home!
 
When you are "trying to get home", it really depends if you are on mechanized transport (or horse) or on foot. That being said, on foot Ramen noodles (and similar) may not be the most appetizing but, there are tons of calories for the lightweight. In a car or pickup, a jetboil with some tea bags and a few cans of soup, beans, tuna, sardines, etc. is pretty nice. Make sure you have a SAK or can opener in your kit ;).
 
Try Theepicenter dot com. They have a large selection of MREs, including individual entrees, sides, etc. They also list the date of manufacture for most of the items.
 
Well, I went and order a MRE sample off of Amazon, yes it was a huge rip off but I only wanted one. Its in a clear package instead of the brown one, glad I got the sloppy joe since it was random. Time to starve myself.
 
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