Review: Dining with MRE's

[Kageyama]

Military MRE, Meal Ready To Eat.

It's been passed around by word of mouth that MRE's aren't the best taste thing and for many are not palatable. I beg to differ... I just recently got a box of MRE's and will slowly Review Each one as I eat them. hehe...

Anyway onto the first Review.

Menu No. 13 The Cheese Tortellini
It comes with the following:
- Vanilla Pound Cake
- Cocoa powder drink mix
- Lemon Tea with sugar
- Crackers with Peanut butter
- Apple Sauce
- Mints
- Salt
- Flameless heater and Hot beverage bag

The Crackers weren't that great. They were dry and hard. And they felt think and tough to swallow alone but with the peanut butter it was a tasty snack while waiting for the main dish to warm up.

The Apple Sauce would have been perfect for a pie filling but as a snack before the main it lacked a bit. But it was a very decent.

The Main dish the Cheese Tortellini, like most MRE's the tough part was getting it equally warm/hot. But the dish itself was quite good. Something like airplane food but a lot tastier a real treat for anyone out in the battle field.

The Lemon Ice tea was good, but the powder was just enough for 6oz which was really small for the meal.

The Pound cake I must say was fantastic, it went perfectly with the Cocoa drink. Wish there was a bit more of both.

Anyway, till next time. I may edit this review later.

[wheitmann]

Finally, someone took the initiative to review MRE's. Keep 'em coming man, I might buy some myself.

[Kageyama]

Menu No. 15
Beef Enchilada

Comes with the Following:
Beef Enchilada
Refried Beans
Vegetable Crackers with Jalapeno Cheese
Toffe Cookies
Tissue
Mints
Fruit Punch Beverage
Nescaffe Brand Coffee with Generic Creamer and Domino Sugar
Iodized Salt and Red Pepper
Hot Sauce for Beef Enchilada


Jalapeno Cheese and Vegetable cracker, personally was not a pleasing change from the Peanut butter and thick Cracker i was used to. The Cracker broke apart easily and wasn't that tasty.

The Jalapeno cheese was quite spicy, but the Fruit Punch helped deal with it, [oh this time the beverage was 12oz not the standard 6oz.] The Cheese did go well with the cracker, but it wasn't an appetizing snack while wait for the Beef Enchilada and Refried beans to heat up.

The coffee was like anyother nescaffe coffee, nothing special. [Yeah every MRE has one branded product, this one was NESCAFFE, the last one I had was PANGEA, and the one before that one was Tootsie Rools, didn't review that one yet.]

Now onto the Beef Enchilada. Well... first of the taste was bad. Bland no flavor. I then added salt. It then had some flavor. Added the Pepper, flavor was decent. Then I added the hot sauce. [And being the tough Spaniard... I add the whole pack and mixed it in, I'm used to spice.] Wrong move. Unless you love spicy, eat sili peppers like nuts or are in snow, don't for the love of God add the hot sauce.

I have no idea what soldier would want to eat something so spicy in a combat zone.

Flavor however did go up. It was a good meal but too spicy for most I believe. Apparently this meal was mean to be eaten in cold climates or in cold areas. Everything in it is hot, the coffee, the snack, the main meal... only the Toffee cookies and beans looks safe so far.

The Refried beans were great. But this is probably bias as I enjoy eating beans. But nonetheless, the beans were good especially when heated. Great thing to eat with the Enchilada to kill the spice.

Now onto the Toofee cookies... I love them. Sugary goodness, great for any soldier who needs the energy, and it's plentiful about 20pcs the tasty little cookies is in the pack, am still in the process of eating them. Good stuff, great with the coffee.

Well to sum it up,

Menu no.15 Beef Enchilada is great, but feels like it'll burn a whole in your gut with it's spice and I don't think anyone will want to be near you for awhile, but all that aside it was a good meal, but lacks powdered drinks.

[charlie]

@ Miko....
How much are the M.R.E's? Are you selling them?

[Kageyama]

M.R.E.'s can range from 150PHP to as high as 450PHP per piece.

And can come in books of 12 and 24.

Military M.R.E. are restricted items. And I got my M.R.E.'s as a birthday gift from my girlfriend. =) But I think I can source them in the future at a nice NSW-8 price.

[wheitmann]

Restricted? I see them on Ebay all the time...

[SHOWTIME]

sa akoa lang ni ha (IMHO): Basin ang naa sa EBAY mga REJECT or MADE in CHINA or Smuggled or PIrated..IMHO lang na ha

matsalams, PEACE IGSU!

[kidon]

Jul 6, 2008 0:21:46 GMT 8 wheitmann said:

Restricted? I see them on Ebay all the time...

they also sell them by the box in dau pampangga. hehe how can that be restricted we bought boxes of it desert rat and i when we were there ehehe

[wheitmann]

Haha, things marked "restricted" don't necessarily mean they can't be gotten ahold of...there are always work-arounds. ;D

[francis]

In the end, money prevails.....

[lowender]

i love your reviews sir kageyama. seems im getting hungry at this late hour. hehehe more reviews please. been thinking of getting an mre but just dont know what flavor to choose from.

your reviews will be a great help. keep em coming.

[silverarrow]

I had an mre meal b4. The package comes w. m&m chocolates.

[kidon]

MRE= Meals Ready to Exit

[Kageyama]

menu no.18
Cajun rice, beans and sausage

Contains the Following:
Orange juice mix [12oz]
Cheese spread
Crackers
Nescaffe brand coffee with generic creamer and domino sugar
Smoked Flavored Almonds
Cheese Pretzel
Tabasco sauce

Tissue paper
Matches
Towlette
Iodized salt

Well after my run with the extra spicy beef enchilada I was hopping to pick up a milder MRE. Well I got what I wished for but this time it had Tabasco option.

Anyway on to the review. The crackers were like any other non-vegetable cracker in an MRE meaning it was thick, hard, chewy and needing of a spread. This time it came with Cheese spread. The cheese was exactly the same as the Jalapeno Cheese Spread with out the Jalapeno. It was a good tasting american Cheese but as a connoisseur of cheese I'd still rather have some good Bleu Cheese but heck that's probably in the French MRE.

And as I was eating this I was preparing the Cajun rice with beans and sausage. And upon trying the meal I reaffirmed a fact. Americans in general don't know how to prepare rice.

The Rice, beans and sausage were pretty bland, and this is the blandest MRE I've tasted yet. But with a little salt and a lot of mixing it improved. And to make a proper review I opened up the small bottle of Tabasco sauce and added a bit of it to the mix.

And yes, I discovered every meal with a 12oz drink most likely is spicy. The orange juice was very refreshing and goes well with the spicy meal but like the ice tea in the beef enchilada meal it lacks in amount.

The meal with the salt added and Tabasco became quite decent but still a little bland.

The two items for dessert, I say two because I don't consider almonds a snack in the middle of the meal, Smoke Flavored Almonds and Cheese Pretzels, were good. The almonds tasted very fresh and were crunchy. Same goes for the Cheese Pretzels but they could have used a bit more cheese.

Ended up using the desserts as a movie snack along with the Coffee. The Nescaffe coffee was like any other nescaffe coffee not great but pretty good.

SIDE NOTE: MRE = Meal Ready to Exit and other variant of the acronym came about from the fact that old MRE's weren't tasty and easy to digest. Also MRE's are known to be high in fiber [ie the Cracker].

[SHOWTIME]

ESKYUS MI: Naa lang ko pangutana, makahatag ba mo og unsay menu sa atong Military?

Matsalams sa inyung mga tubag..

Peace IGSU!

[Kageyama]

Filipino MRE's are CRM in some areas like Japan if I remember.

CRM = Canned Rice Meal.

Some areas just give Puso and fish. The CRM's supposedly have sausage and other meats along with the rice.

[Kageyama]

Menu no. 17
Sloppy Joe

MRE Contains the following
Baked Snack Crackers
2pcs Wheat Snack Bread
Barbecue Sause and Beef
Jalapeno Cheese
Tabasco
Short Bread Cookie
Carbohydrate Electrolyte beverage powder ["Gatorade powder"] Fruit Punch flavor [12oz]

Nescaffe wit domino sugar and generic creamer

Flameless heater
Matches
Tissue
Moist towlette
Hot Beverage bag
Mints
Iodized Salt

NOTE: I may have forgot to mention in my old reviews, all MRE contain the last 7 items listed.

Well to start off this is one of the few MRE's I actually had to eat with a plate instead of using the usual makeshift MRE plate. And I expected spice... as the dreaded 12oz drink was apparent.

Upon opening the MRE I was surprised with the amount of packages in this one. As well as this being one of the first MRE's I had with out the usual thick cracker with peanut butter or jam or cheese.

Anyway, I immediately began preparing the Barbecue sauce for the Sloppy joe with the flameless heater, and I set up the wheat bread, jalapeno cheese and tabasco on the plate, they all go together, so this MRE has a bit of assembly required.

While waiting for the beef to heat up I prepared the "gatorade" and began munching on the Baked Snack Crackers.

The Snack Crackers were dry like most of the crackers and breads in an MRE. Had a very slight flavor of cheese though they looked smothered in it. A nice snack with nothing much to comment on besides it's lack of flavor.

Then when the beef finally heated up I prepared the Wheat Snack Bread on the plate. I prepared it open faced instead of the typical burger to make it a lot less sloppy and to test different combinations.

I kneaded the beef and sauce then poured it over the two thick slices of dry bread. I added tried it without adding jalapeno cheese, salt and tabasco.

Bland really. But the dryness of the bread and the saucy beef went well together.

I then added jalapeno cheese to one and salt to the other.

The Jalepeno was just what the Sloppy joe needed. The cheese added flavor to it and the spice gave it a nice kick. A great combination.

The Salt[ a pinch was added] gave it the needed flavor but it wasn't as good as adding the Jalapeno cheese.

I then added Salt with the Jalapeno cheese. Fantastic flavor for a meal almost a 1/2 year old.

I then opened the dreaded Tabasco, I hate the flavor and it burns like coal.

I added it to the sloppy joe, tried it with jalapeno, with salt, without either, and with both. I place about 1/4 of the bottle.

And what did I find out...

It tasted even better! =)

This was a spicy meal that didn't lack much drink, though it could use more, but it needed more, Jalapeno cheese.

Great meal.

Now onto dessert.

I prepared the Nescaffe Coffee and the Short Bread Cookie.

The coffee was decent nothing really special about it. The Short bread cookie was thick, hard, and dry, but it went well with the coffee.

The Dessert and snack was lacking this time but the main course was great.

Menu No.7 is now on my top 5 but there are a few more to go.

[Kageyama]

b]Menu no. 16
Chicken Noodles in Vegetable Sauce

MRE Contains the following
Crackers
Cheese spread
Cacao Powder Drink [12oz]
Peach Apple Sauce
Tabasco
Sports Choco Sandwich Bar

M&M's milk chocolate
Nescaffe wit domino sugar and generic creamer

Flameless heater
Matches
Tissue
Moist towlette
Hot Beverage bag
Mints
Iodized Salt[/b]

Well I opened another MRE so you know what that means... Another review.

So Menu no.16 Chicken Noodles in Vegetable Sauce taught me something important... American MRE companies don't know how to prepare a decent Asian or asian-ish meal but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Cracker and Cheese were like an other in the MRE's. Crackers were thick and chewy but they were a nice starter.

The Peach Apple Sauce was something like the apple sauce I had in a past MRE. Tasted good but still would have been better in a Pie than as a snack before the main meal. It was sweet and just crying for some pie crust.

Now the main meal.. the chicken in vegetable sauce.

It looked as bad as it tasted. The chicken was hard, the noodles soggy and sauce bland. Threw in some salt and tabasco. Thank God, it became palatable. This one was one of the worst meals I've had in a bit, mainly because of the tough chicken and bland sauce.

But the salt and tabasco was a life saver.

The Dessert was nice. The Sport Choco Sandwich Bar tasted like any other energy bar, hard, thick, weird choco flavor and crunchy. But it's nothing that you wouldn't expect from an energy bar of its kind. The bar was up to spec and decent, went nice with the Nescaffe coffee with sugar and creamer.

And the M&M's... really what can I say? They're M&M's, they're great. =)

[lowender]

in what way was the chicken presented? in big slices (breast, wings or drumsticks) or in small chunks?

[Kageyama]

Jul 23, 2008 22:41:32 GMT 8 lowender said:

in what way was the chicken presented? in big slices (breast, wings or drumsticks) or in small chunks?

They were in small chunks. More often than not chicken in meals like this are in chunks never full pieces. The chunks were pretty tough and noodles not the great. It was one of the worse ones I've tried due to lack of flavor and bad texture. But the M&M's and Cacao made up for it a bit. =)

[Kageyama]

Menu no.23 Chicken with Cavatelli

MRE Contains the following
Cheese Spread with Bacon
Wheat Snack Bread
Beverage base powder Lemon-Lime [Natural and Artificial Flavor] 12oz
Fig Bar
Nut Rasin Mix
Breaded Chicken Pattie with Rib Meat in Tomato sause with Pasta

Nescaffe with domino sugar and generic creamer

Flameless heater
Matches
Tissue
Moist towlette
Hot Beverage bag
Mints
Iodized Salt


Well another MRE meal another Review. This MRE is surprising in two ways one... it has no cracker and the other there's a 12oz drink.. and nothing spicy. d**n. Anyway on to the review.

In place of the usual cracker was a Wheat Snack Bread and this time the spread of cheese had some bacon. Well I was hoping to see some thing that resembled bacon in the cheese... no dice. It looked like any other MRE cheese spread, thick, sticky and looking like crap. But regardless of how it looks, it tasted good and there I found the bacon. The cheese has bacon flavoring in it and it goes very well with the snack bread.

Next on the list may have been the Fig Bar but I'm not one to eat something sweet before the main meal.

Breaded Chicken Pattie with Rib Meat in Tomato sause with Pasta as it says on the pack. It sounds better than it taste... well not really it hardly taste like anything. Well it does taste like chicken.

The initial taste of the main meal was a tad bland but the tomato sauce was decent but the chicken wasn't too great but at least it was an actual fillet not just some bits like the other chicken meal. A tad bit of salt and some heavy mixing and it was a pretty good meal and I can't believe I'm saying this but it would have been better with some Tabasco.

Now onto the Fig Bar. Well... it's a fig bar. NOthing much to say it's tasty, chewy and thick. A bit like a lower quality Fig Newton.

Now on to the desert Nut Rasin Mix. It's weird but tasty really. There are two kinds of nuts, peanuts[ok I know it's not really a nut] and some bigger nut along with rasin and something that looks and taste like an M&M but a tad bigger.

It decent and goes well with the coffee though the coffee was far better with the Fig Bar then the Nut Raisin Mix.

Well that's the review and I'll end it with this. The Wheat Bread is great, love the lemon-lime, and Tabasco isn't always a bad addition.

[Kageyama]

Menu No. 21
Chili and Macaroni
aka: Chili Mac

MRE Comes with the following:
Wheat Snack Bread
Cheese spread with Jalapenos
Molasses Cookie
Cinnamon Imperials
Chilli and Macaroni

Base Beverage Raspberry [20oz!]
Spiced apple Cider [6oz]

Then usual stuff + red pepper, no coffee this time.

Now too start out this review maybe heavily bias as I love the Chili Mac MRE. It's the MRE I usually look for. 20oz drink and lots of tasty stuff with just the right amount of spicy kick. HOOYAH!

The Wheat Snack Bread is dry, thick and chewy but it goes very well with the Cheese Spread with Jalapenos. You can actually see the Jalapeno bits this time. The two go very well together the dryness is neutralized by the thick spicy cheese paste and the flavor is just good.

And I prepared the Base Beverage Rasberry which has the amazing size of 20oz. The largest drink I've seen so far in an MRE and it still has an additional 6oz Spiced Apple Cider.

The Molasses cookie is supposed to be eaten with the main as a way to neutralize the spiciness if ever it's too spicy but i ended up making it my dessert. So onto the Chili macaroni.

The main dish Chili with Macaroni is just right. Not much flavor this time around though but the spiciness is just right. The pack of Red Pepper will give you a firm kick of spice if you should add it and the salt isn't really that great a choice unless you just poured in all the Red Pepper.

The Macaroni has a nice texture to eat and it taste al dente. And the chili has a good mix of meat and spice to it.

Now to the dessert, and yes the reason the drink is 20oz cause if your not used to eating spicy you'll need it as almost everything in the Chili Mac is spicy.

I had finished the Raspberry drink and prepared the Spiced Apple Cider. I started with the Molasses cookie. It was thick and felt a bit mushy but it was a nice sweet cookie that help get rid of the spicy flavor in my mouth and it went well with the Apple Cider.

The apple cider had a rich taste assuming you place the right amount of water and tasted like any other apple cider; a strong taste of apple essence.

Then the candy it came for the actual dessert was Cinamon Imperials, which I have been eating for sometime as this review is a bit late.

The Candies are small red balls that are tough and a bit hard to chew on. They are cinnamon flavored obviously and have a decent amount of spiciness to it along with a decent amount of sugar to wake you up.

All in all. I love the Chili Mac. It's just good. =)

[Kageyama]

Menu No. 20 Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

MRE Comes with the Following:
- Cherry Blue Berry Cobbler
- Carbohydrate Electrolyte Beverage Powder Orange (natural and artificial flavor) [12oz]]
- Potato Sticks
- Wheat snack bread
- Cheese Spread
- Tabasco Sauce

-Nescaffe Coffe with the usual fixin's

And the usual stuff.

Well another MRE another Review. This time it's Spaghetti with meat sauce.

Well the meal started out with the Wheat Snack Bread, the usual dry and thick consistency, the went well with the Cheese spread, thick and oily goodness. It was a great start.

This is also one of the only MRE's that offer Potato sticks, basically tiny french fries, but the sticks taste like any other generic piknik potato sticks. Dry and a bit salty. Only problem with it is it forces you to finish all your Orange juice fast due to all the salt.

The Carbohydrate Electrolyte Beverage Powder Orange (natural and artificial flavor) .... yeah long name for generic gatorade drink. It was good a nice tangy flavor but like most MRE drinks lacks quantity.

The Main meal Spaghetti wit meat sauce... well it was good but nothing great. It was tomato base sauce with ground meat and cut up noodles. The noodles weren't al dente nor with they soggy but didn't really matter since though you could see them you never really felt them when you ate it.

The Spaghetti tasted much better with a bit of salt and Tabasco sauce but still nothing great.

What was great was the Cherry Blue Berry Cobbler, one of the best desserts in an MRE. it tasted great. Very sweet and there were actual chunks of cherry and blue berries. Taste great warm probably best really cold or hot. But again it feels like something I'd rather put in a pie.

Anyway that's the review. Menu No. 20 Spaghetti with Meat Sauce is decent MRE with a great dessert. Sorry if this is rushed I have to act in a play tonight.

[kidon]

looks like its time to ship a box of meals ready to exit. hehe

[Kageyama]

Menu no. 22 Jambalaya

MRE Contains the following
Wheat Snack Bread
Grape Jelly Spread
Poppy Seed Pound Cake
Ham and Shrimp Jambalaya
Vanilla Dairy Milk Shake Powder [Artificially and Naturally Favored, Fortified with Calcium and Vitamin D] (6.oz)
Tabasco
Nescafe coffee powder, Domino Sugar and Generic Creamer

And the usual other stuff.

This is gonna be my last MRE Review for awhile since I'm planning to save the last 2 MRE's for Operation : Broadsword 3. Always good to have food with you in the field.

Anyway on to the review. The Jambalaya has been one of my favorites since well for one, I enjoy Jambalaya.

The Wheat snack bread seems to be popping out more often now and it's very welcome. This time around there was no peanut butter, cheese, or Jalapeno Cheese spread. There was Grape Jelly Spread and it's fantastic.

It's very very sweet though so it would have been nice to have something to balance it out in the meal but water will suffice. The consistence was more liquid then a jam so it flowed easily and it seemed to taste a bit more like honey than grape.

It went very well with the snack bread but it had a tendency to spill off the bread if the bread was angled. Other than that it's a nice sweet combination perfect for a boast of energy.

One thing I've been looking forward to i the new MRE's... well kinda new at least... was the addition of the Milkshake [which comes in chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla. I got the Vanilla one.] It's a great addition to give you a nice relaxed feel in the field.

The milkshake is also the perfect drink to battle the Tabasco's spiciness. The milk shake was 6 oz and apparently the mix powder is very precise a bit more over 6.oz and your drink suffers but I mixed the milk shake just right. I forgot to mention in many of my earlier reviews, the milk shake like the cocoa drinks come in a special sealable drinking container. I place 6 oz in and gave it a good shake.

It tasted fantastic, [yes I am lactose intolerant but I still love milk, it didn't bother me much surprisingly]. It has a nice thickness to it. It's very creamy and flavorful.

By this time the Jambalaya was ready. It was a Ham and Shrimp Jambalaya. Jambalaya is a saucy rice dish with meat bits. The jambalaya was a decent meal that could use a bit of tabasco and a bit of salt to make a bit more decent. I saw the bits of ham in it but didn't notice any shrimp. However the flavor was there.

It was a good meal but it lacked a bit of rice and like a lot of the MRE rice meals the rice seemed mushy. But the jambalaya is supposed to be a bit mushy so it was fine. It went surprisingly well with the Milkshake.

After the Jambalaya I prepared the Nescafe coffee and the poppy seed pound cake.

I have no idea why but the pound cake was sparkly. But it tasted good, thick but it tends to break apart easily. The poppy seeds gave it a bit more texture but the flavor wasn't very noticeable.

It went well with the coffee.

All in all the Jambalaya was a meal you will love or hate. It has some of the best stuff but it also has one of the least in a amount. But all in all it was a good meal. Just felt like it lacked a bit.

[Kageyama]

Menu no. 24 Meatloaf with Gravy

MRE contains the following:
Meatloaf with Onion Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Crackers
Apple Jelly
Shortbread Cookie
Cocoa Beverage powder natural and artificial flavor Fortified 6oz
Iced Tea Drink mix Lemon Flavor Natural and artificial Lemon Flavor with other natural flavors .56oz
Tootsie rolls
Tabasco sauce
And the usual

Yes I know I said I was gonna save the MRE for Operation Broadsword, unfortunately I was hungry and there wasn't anything else readily available. So I popped open Menu no. 24.

So on to the Review.

The crackers were the usual hard and dry MRE crackers, it didn't go well with the apple jelly. The apple jelly easily slid off the cracker but it did help with the dryness of the cracker. But the annoying part was there was only enough jelly for one cracker and the MRE comes with two.

The iced tea was good but the .56oz size was kinda wierd but it was decent nothing great about it.

The main meal Meatloaf with onion gravy and a side of mashed potatoes. First of all if you ate the two separately it would be pretty bad. The Meatloaf has no staple mixed into it so you need the carbs in the potato and the potatoes by themselves are dry. But together they make a decent meal. And I'm not a meatloaf fan but it was a decent meal especially with some salt and tabasco.

The desert was the shortbread cookie and the tootsie roll.

The cookie was hard and dry, very hard and dry, It went down well with some of the cocoa drink but without the cocoa, it would be a chore to eat the cookie.

The tootsie roll... not much to say. It's a tootsie roll.

All in all this MRE wasn't good or bad, but sufficient. Enough calories for hard activities and enough sugar and caffeine to perk you up a bit.

Well one more MRE to go, Roast Beef with Vegetables. Until then enjoy the past reviews.