Mar 28 2008
MRE taste test - will you survive?
MRE is not usually mentioned in the same sentence with words like gourmet or delicious. It is at best compared to food from a can.
It has many derogatory acronyms referred to by soldiers such as “meals refusing to exit” for it’s digestive properties, and mystery meat for taste, etc.
With this in mind before you choose MRE as a survival food, you should make sure you and your family find it tasty enough to survive on and digest.
You may think now that they will be satisfied with “any food” if need be after a disaster if there is “no other choice”.
But there is another choice - not to eat, and that can become a serious problem.
It will be a risk to morale and safety if the food you eat causes more distress on top of the situation you are in.
So it would be best if you can do a trial run eating whatever food you choose for preparedness for a few days. If you and and your family are not thrilled with how the food tastes at least you have an idea what to expect in the event you need to use it. If it is impossible for some of your family to eat, make a decision to look at some other type of food option such as freeze dried food.
While you may not find the taste of MRE as bad as mentioned above, and there are actually some people who really like it, one consolation is that it is easily heated. In 10 minutes you can have a hot meal by adding water to the MRE’s flameless ration heater pouch most MRE comes with.
If you are cold and wet, hot food tends to taste delicious no matter what you would have thought otherwise.
I found a recent blog post on MRE taste and digestive implications here;
Tales from around the world - The MRE
The post pretty much validates my opinion that MRE should only be considered for a 72 hour mobile kit or at most a one week emergency food source for preparedness.
Here is a interesting video on some Utah chefs who tasted MRE for a review.
Published under MRE
