Buck and a quarter MRE's....???

Discussion in 'General Survival and Preparedness' started by dragonfly, Nov 21, 2011.


  1. dragonfly

    dragonfly Monkey+++

    Not what you'd expect! And No, NOT the mil spec types at all..I am referrinig to a meal that is ready to eat, is filling, "nutritional value"? I have NO idea! It's filling and I like it, so I guess it must be good food?
    I buy Chili with beans, and Beef stew, in 15 oz cans. They cost only a $1 each. I add some crackers (after all, we are civilized ya know!) where I get 4 sealed packages in a nice cardboard box also for another $1.
    So for a low cost of $1.25, I get a 15oz meal ( somewhat hearty!) and a side of crackers! I can't beat that, except for tuna and crackers , which I can get the costs down to $.75 to $.85 per meal! Now I know they do NOT have a 25 year shelf life...BUT they come ready to eat, and all I need is a can opener ( P-38 or P-51) and a spoon! ( or, maybe a fork in some cases!) Now, you can also buy the Chef Boy Ar Dee's products in a can, that have a higher carbohydrate count, such as: spaghetti, with or without meatballs, lasagna, ravioli in small or large sized pieces, spaghetti "O's" and macaroni with meat sauce...They too are only a $1 each. Add those crackers, and there ya go! I like canned products...I know the arguments about the weight and the time they are good for...But, I don't have to haul water, mix anything, and no heat is required to make them taste decent. Besides, I have always found a use for the cans afterwards! The few dehydrated meals I have tried, I hated...with a passion! Now IF there may be some reserves of the OLD "C-rations" out there, anywhere, ...well then,... "let's eat"!
    I ate a lot of them. Cold, in the rain, in the snow, and in a tent. I can still say, I was never disappointed with them!
    Today, for what you would pay for some of those wonderfully dehydrated meals, you could actually have 3-4 cans of a variety of foods, and even a side dish or two.
    You could mix or match, have a large pot of say: stew, or chili, or have different items (a selection) of vegetables like corn, beans, and a meat (main dish). Add some of the red beans with rice, and some meat like corned beef, or canned roast beef, and you have a real NON dried out meal, that is quite nourishing and festive! Easy to get, easy to prepare, and LOVERLY to eat!
    It's 3 in the morning here right now, and writing this made me so hungry I just finished off a can of chili, with beans,...cold, with crackers!
    Yummmmm! Breakfast of champions!
     
  2. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    ANY canned food can be eaten right from the can. The canning process uses heat,and the food is sufficiently cooked to eat. Taste is a different matter- hot usually tastes a lot better, and canned veggies generally need some flavoring. I have eaten the Hormel Canned Beef and Chicken right from the can too. Sometimes I am just too tired or lazy to 'cook', and just pop the can and eat.
    I eat the Chef Boy Ardee right from the can too. Maybe not the most healthy or nutritious, but it stokes the belly and tastes good.
    I like most FD meals, especially MH, but they are spendy, and I don't generally have to watch the weight factor of water and such - canned goods fit my needs quite well. With my health issues, I will NOT be bugging out with a 75 lb pack on my sore aging back!
    Others have different needs and expectations. So, YMMV! [stirpot]
     
  3. dragonfly

    dragonfly Monkey+++

    I'm thinking ( Lie to the dog!) Tell him it's his canned food he's carrying in the pack on his back...He won't know the difference and he'll be glad to eat some of yours! Now I'm wondering, maybe a 2 wheeled cart for the dog to pull instead...?
    Mush ya dogs!
     
    Falcon15 likes this.
  4. oth47

    oth47 Monkey+

    I've found that I can eat pretty much anything,and the hungrier I am the better it tastes.If I was prepping with freeze dried food,I wouldn't have near as much food as I do,I can't afford it.Other than beans and pasta,most of my preps are canned goods.I went to a roadside dump once and found a case of old canned army rations,left over from I don't know when.I took'em home and sampled a couple and they were edible,but not as fresh as they might have been.Over the course of that year's trapping season I ate every last one.I especially liked the packs of toilet paper,matches,gum and Tabasco sauce that were in the boxes.I still have a couple of match books left..
     
    dragonfly likes this.
  5. Falcon15

    Falcon15 Falco Peregrinus

    Old C-rats or K-rats. Those were GREAT. I ate one in 1990 from the late 1960's and the only complaint was the brownie in the can was a bit fermented. I opened it and it smelled like booze so I chucked it. Rather safe than sorry. The canned ham was excellent, the peaches were a bit discolored, but tasted like peaches. Overall, it was edible.

    Canned (in metal or glass) hold a large portion of my bug-in/ Vehicle bug out preps. They are filling, can be eaten cold from the can (I especially love corn right from the can with a lil salt and pepper). In a bug-in scenario, we will be keeping a low profile, doing very little hard labor for at lest the first year (we have enough non-food preps in place to last 2 years, food for 5 years). We figure after a year if things are not any better (grid still down, basic services still non-functional) the worst will have past and we can start getting out and about to gather firewood, scavenge, etc. Bug out in a vehicle is completely different, as is bug out on foot.
     
    ColtCarbine and dragonfly like this.
  6. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    I eat the "Ready to Eat" rice meals, in the plastic pouches - prefer 'real' home cooked rice, but I keep the R-t-E stuff in my preps, so make sure I am used to it - it does taste a bit 'processed'. Gotta watch it though - it's dated for only a year, and though I have eaten it another year beyond that, I have had a couple go bad - real bad!
    Uncle Ben's, Rice-a-Roni, Zaterain's - all are good. The Zaterain's is usually the cheapest and tastes best.
    They can be eaten cold in the pouch, but really do best when cooked with a bit of water to further hydrate and keep it from sticking in the pot. I eat them a lot when traveling by motorcycle - give me my GI canteen cup and spork, a small stove or fire - I'm cooking!
     
    dragonfly likes this.
  7. dragonfly

    dragonfly Monkey+++

    I bought a lot of those dehydrated potatoes, from the au gratin kinds to the scalloped types, with cheese packets. The cheese goes bad after about a year. I took the potatoes cello packets out, emptied them into my vacuum bags and resealed them that way. I found 2 packages I had done about 4+ years ago, still nice and bright colored, and they had NO oils in them for processing, So I tasted them babies and they were as good as the day they were bought! I have a few dehydrated stuffing mixes, and other types of instant foods from oatmeal to rice ( old "Uncle Ben's Perverted rice") and potatoes in flakes ( instant) and in chunks....All of them last a LONG time when they are resealed by vacuum bagging. I also found that the clear bags are ok, but those mylar food grade types keep any light out, and that saves a lot of foods! Some things I'll even double bag, clear first, then mylar over that.
     
  8. Mechwolf

    Mechwolf Monkey+

    The T rations aren't bad you can find them every now and then. The only problem is that they are made for a squad of people. The thing I like about them is you can throw em on top of an engine to heat the up.
     
  9. Sgt Prepper

    Sgt Prepper Monkey+

    Does anyone recall LRRPS--a dehydrated meal we used in Vietnam in addition to our C rations? We use to take the C4 explosive out of claymores and heat water with it and then pour the water into the LRRP bag. LRRP stood for Long Range Recon Patrol. It seems like it was the forerunner for MREs. They weren't too bad and certainly better than C rations.
     
    dragonfly likes this.
  10. dragonfly

    dragonfly Monkey+++

    Oh yes....as I also remember many other things! Some things you just can't forget! Used a lot of C-4 to heat foods and water with...I ate with a group once that had LRRP meals...Not sure if I really liked the food or not, as I was too busy in others areas at the time...Luckily for me I never had to cannabilize the Claymores...I always seemed to have an abundant supply of C-4 sticks in my pockets...Much to the dismay to those around me.....
     
  11. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    That is something I never really understood, Dragonfly.... How some folks could be so uptight, when there is a pile of C4 around. It is the MOST Stable of ALL Militarized Energetics. It just does NOT "Go Off" without a Boosted Initiator, attached, or an Energetic Detonation within its Near Field Distance. You can Burn it, Light it for cooking, shoot it with Pistol, or Rifle, Rounds, and it will just sit there, or burn like paraffin. Back in the day, when I was an Apprentice Powderman, one of my jobs, was to melt down M1 Demolition Chain Blocks, and recast them in PaperTowel Tubes, for loading into Quarry Holes. We also recast Tons of C4, the same way. My Master Blaster would buy the stuff, from Military Surplus, at the local Fort. It was way cheaper than Commercial Energetics on Sale at the time. We recycled the Det-Cord from the M1 Demolition Chain as well. You got a 8 ft piece, out of every Satchel. Just right for 7 ft bore holes. That Old Boy knew how to Squeeze a Blood out of a nickel, for sure.
     
    dragonfly likes this.
  12. dragonfly

    dragonfly Monkey+++

    Trouble was, most people not familiar with the stuff are scared silly when they see it...Only once was there an "accident", which was avoidable...one guy was heating C-rats in the back of a deuce and a half and the can boiled over onto his fingers...he dropped the can! BANG! He was covered in boiling hot beans and weenies! I now it's NOT funny, but then again...OH YES IT WAS!
    I used 1/2lb. blocks of TNT placed on the top of a 55 gal barrel, lit to produce heat, for when it was -40 in Grafenvher (sp?) Germany...Scared the heck out of my sgt. and plt. ldr. But when they saw it was not going to blow up and only melt like a big candle, they came right over to get warm!
    Have to avoid the smoke and fumes, but being outside it was better than nothing!
     
  13. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    Dang, we shipboard squids missed that kind of fun....... ;)
     
    dragonfly likes this.
  14. Mechwolf

    Mechwolf Monkey+

    I always kind of liked making acetylene bombs in the motor pool. You had to be careful not to make them to big or you would blow out the windows. >:)
     
    dragonfly likes this.
  15. dragonfly

    dragonfly Monkey+++

    We Did that in high school with acetylene and condoms....Mr. Kruger was NOT at all amused! I doubt it was the BANG!, I think it was the fact that we were using condoms! He got over it....We sat in the corners for a week too!
     
  16. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    The most we did on ship was to take the flints from old style lighters, hold it by the spring and heat to cherry red, then fling it against the steel bulkhead - a nice little "BANG!"
    The fun ended when the Sonar Chief nearly got hit by one coming in the watertight door we were flinging them against! Uh oh!

    I had some C-rats once in the early 70's during a CAP encampment down in Naples, Fl. They were okay.
    Later had my first MRE at Gitmo during 'refresher training' for the gas chamber. I guess eating them after having gotten a dose of reduced teargas kinda mucked up the flavor.......
     
    dragonfly likes this.
  17. dragonfly

    dragonfly Monkey+++

    CS? or CN? I hate them both!
     
  18. Alpha Dog

    Alpha Dog survival of the breed

    I have a couple cases of MRE's just incase i carry a few in my vehicle and a couple in our day packs the we take every where with us. I prefer can food to it's cheeper, taste better and if you look you can find a shelf life of 3 to five years down the road. One of my biggest likes is if you supplies for what ever reason becomes contaminated you can get a large pot or metal bucket bring to a boil and after a few min the can is decontaminated and being inside a sealed can the food is safe.
     
    dragonfly likes this.
  19. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    Don't remember, after thutty years......

    But I was standing next to the bucket they dropped the pellet into. Whoowee, big fun! :D

    It actually wasn't as bad as the Smoke Chamber.....
     
    dragonfly likes this.
  20. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Heh. Found that undress blues hold the smoke for a LONG time, didn't you?
     
    Falcon15 and Seawolf1090 like this.
survivalmonkey SSL seal        survivalmonkey.com warrant canary
17282WuJHksJ9798f34razfKbPATqTq9E7