I'll preface this by saying I've never served in the military and I've never eaten a MRE. My dad who served 1970-1972 had an old C-Rat that we observed over the years slowly bulge until being tossed in the late 90s.

I bought 4 MREs and a TOTM from a local online estate auction for $10 for entertainment value with the kids. The outer bags all looked good, they all smelled like old people house, I have no idea how they were stored. I could see in the TOTM that the M&M package was torn and was advertising the Global Search for a new color campaign from late 2001. The date codes on the boxes I saw in that bag and the one I ultimately opened tonight were all mid-2001. The MRE I ate likely predated 9/11...

I laid out my options for the kids (5, 9, and 11) and my wife to chose my fate: Pasta with Vegetables, Chicken with Cavatelli, Beef with Mushrooms, and Chili and Macaroni. Pasta with Vegetables was chosen. I tried the peanuts first and they were excellent. The peanut butter was good, nice and creamy. The pears were dark brown and I only had one small piece and it didn't taste good. The crackers were stale and not good, I only had a small bite. I kept the flameless heater for future activities and tried a bite of the pasta with vegetables at room temperature and it tasted fine, I nuked it in the microwave for a minute and it tasted perfectly fine. I ended up eating half of it. The Charms were getting liquified so I didn't try those. The apple cider and the lemon tea both ended up being the same color and tasted fine, I had mixed each in warm water. The gum tasted fine. I didn't try the toilet paper or matches but I assume they work as intended. The Tabasco was still liquid and tasted fine but I don't use Tabasco so I don't know if it tasted any different.

I didn't eat the entire contents as I didn't want to be plugged up for the month and I had just eaten some Costco pizza. I will report any ill effects, but this gives me alot of confidence in these things.

There is a guy on Youtube who tries out the world's MREs and gives an enthusiastic description of them as he eats them.

22 years ain’t nothing anymore, that meal was made after Y2K lol.

I do believe though your family picked the worst choice.

quote:

Originally posted by OttoSig:

I do believe though your family picked the worst choice.

We kinda all agreed to try the least desirable sounding one for the experiment. Wife chose to try none of it, there needed to be a Designated Survivor. The kids had some of the peanuts and drink.

There is a guy on youtube that makes videos of himself opening and sometimes eating old rations from different countries. I think the oldest one he tried was a canned British ration from the Boer war. Its actually pretty interesting and gross at the same time.

Found it

1899 Ration

Let's get this out onto a tray. Nice!

Please be sure to check in with us tomorrow, if you're still here.

quote:

Originally posted by fischtown7:
Found it

1899 Ration

Yes, this guy. I was watching some of his videos with the kids. Dude must have intestines of stainless steel.

I was working at the camp not to long ago, got a little hungry. All I had to check was a plastic bin of sorts, including survival rations another relative left.

This was commercial, not MREs, kinda similar though. They even came with a heating element.

The date said good to 2008, I figured they were fair game. It was some kind of beef stew, I’m still here, ate it all, with trimmings.

After eating it I thought I’ll restock at some point, haven’t gotten that far yet.

quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:
The crackers were stale and not good,

They're like that when they're fresh.

You haven’t truly lived until you’ve had the MRE “Four Fingers of Death” hot dog meal or the really yummy ham omelet meal from the late-1980’s to early 1990’s era! Before the flameless heaters arrived in the mid-90’s so you had to eat them cold which only made the experience all the better

quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:
I didn't try the toilet paper or matches but I assume they work as intended.

You’ll need both today.

Along with a #10 can of prunes in juice (since you ate the peanut butter).

When I was in the Marines in the mid 60's we were still using up C-Rations from WW II. Everything was still good, but the 4-packs of Lucky Strikes & Camels that were included were kind of stale. Didn't stop us from smoking them though.

12 hours later and I'm still alive today.

...and I just pooped.

quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:
12 hours later and I'm still alive today.

...and I just pooped.

While I've always believed MRE's were packed full of fiber to regulate bowel movements in the field, the food we received at bootcamp had us all believing the opposite was true of bootcamp food. That stuff had us going to the bathroom like clockwork. 30 minutes after chow we all had to go.

MREs are pretty good actually. I genuinely like the chili mac.

quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:
The crackers were stale and not good, I only had a small bite.

The crackers started out that way the day they were packaged, so it sound like they maintained their quality quite well!

I still have a couple of unopened brown-packaged MREs (late 1980s-early 1990s). I recently noticed that the packaging has become brittle and breaking / cracking. These have been kept inside for over 20 years. I ate the M&Ms, cookies / cakes, crackers, and peanut butter form some others that were open. Fed the Chicken-a-la-king to the cat, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
You haven’t truly lived until you’ve had the MRE “Four Fingers of Death” hot dog meal or the really yummy ham omelet meal from the late-1980’s to early 1990’s era! Before the flameless heaters arrived in the mid-90’s so you had to eat them cold which only made the experience all the better

I liked the ham omelet, throw some Tabasco on it and enjoy. The only one I wouldn't eat was the chicken loaf, not fit for a dog

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
You haven’t truly lived until you’ve had the MRE “Four Fingers of Death” hot dog meal or the really yummy ham omelet meal from the late-1980’s to early 1990’s era! Before the flameless heaters arrived in the mid-90’s so you had to eat them cold which only made the experience all the better

Haha, this meal was probably my first experience with MREs. I was a kid in Boy Scouts at the time, and one of our leaders had gotten a couple of cases that we split during a "survival campout." I thought the hot dogs sounded like a wonderful option and grabbed those as soon as I saw them.

I don't have many regrets in life, but I regretted that choice as I choked those down while everyone else ate other stuff that ranged from just ok to surprisingly decent for what it was. I did get some beef stew later that was actually pretty good, but I won't ever forget those hot dogs.

Don't soldiers think the Charms are bad luck?