I dont understand O'Grady's rejection of MRE's.

Whenever my MRE's reach 6 years old, I consume them. Of course, I take them out of their container and nuke them. Also, I bathe them in spicy sauces ... but then, I do that to all my food. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

You obviously do not frequent the Officer's Mess!
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After getting the worst case of food poisoning I've ever had at the Army chow hall in Baghdad, I did a thorough evaluation of what good food supplies could be sent from home. I too found the tuna in a bag, along with chicken in a bag, and shrimp in a bag. I also found several ready made pouches of rice from Rice-a-roni, Uncle Bens, and Zatarains. I also found a number of ready made soup pouches from Bear Creek. All of these were heat and serve, capable of being eaten as is right out of the bag, or being nuked in a microwave or in a pot of hot water in the container before being eaten. All of them withstood vigorous shipping and handling conditions and all of them produced relatively pallatable meals. I also got a number of freeze dried backpack meals, and was issued nearly a case of MREs. While the soups were mostly water and therefore a load to carry, they were quite convenient and substantial enough to satisfy me as a meal. All of the containers were very durable, and withstood boiling temperatures quite well. Unlike the tuna/chicken/fish and freeze dried foil pouches, the soups and the rice were in HD poly bags. For extended storage, they may be prone to some gaseous infiltration, but in the 8 months I had mine, none of them ever exhibited any failures.

Were I interested in constructing my own MREs, I have no doubt I could find suitable components. The re-packaging would like be in a more rigid, shockproof container, but the results would be similar.

I've also found sources of freeze dried eggs in mylar pouches, and TVP products. The TVP stuff is so hardy, I keep it in plastic cannisters with screw on lids that I retrieve product from. So long as I don't let it get wet, it doesn't seem to change much over the course of a year. Even fresh, though, it is a poor substitute for real meat. The best of it I've found so far is the fake taco meat ones. Of course, it is an excellent additive to other dishes where the taste and texture are more determined by the other ingredients.

If you don't mind breaking away from Western type food, I've found a few types of Indian food packaged in pouches. I've had a few different types, the taste has been pretty good. As with any package food there is also high sodium, so I don't make them my every-day meal. They are handy in the desk drawer for when I forget lunch and can't get away from my desk.

I have purchased them at the local supermarket under the " TastyBite " brand. Trader Joe's in my area has a store brand of similar make.

The tastybite web site states "Remains fresh for 18 months". I have a Trader Joe's Pav Bahji in my desk that has a 1/07 date, bought it a couple months ago. I've had a TastyBite pack that was at the month of expiration and it tasted fine.

Plus, in a survival situation, the pungent smell of curry could be used as an olfactory emergency beacon! <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I've got a pouch of the Starkist hickory smoked Tuna in my pantry now (to eventually meet it's fate as dinner), and another plain pouch in my cars 'bugout-backpack.' I remember some Rice-A-Roni in a pouch, but the one I tried a while back tasted pretty lousy to me....

Another survival food option maybe...how about those Dinty Moore (and other makers now too I think) no-refregerate Microwave Bowls? They can also be boiled (in theory, I haven't tried it myself). Shelf life is OK, about a year. The turkey and dressing one is delicious, I haven't tried any others. There's quite a variety now: beef stew, teryaki chicken, lasanga, ect. Anyone have any experience using these for more than lunch at the office?

If you ain't burying cans of them in the woods, why not store food you eat normally and just cycle through it as you go? Eating and replacing your stored food saves you the hassle of worrying about experation dates.

One food that I think is great for storage is grainseed. I buy buckwheat and millet at the livestock feed store for my chickens. Mostly I feed them a laying crumble based on corn and whole oats, but I also give them some buckwheat and millet. Now, the buckwheat they carry is the same stuff that those maple syrup festivals use so it is eaten all the time by people. The millet is edible but it have some small stones and debris in it. I just shake a jar full and the stones settle to the bottom.

Buckwheat and millet contain every amino acid required by man, even the hard to get 4, and in good quantity. If you want to store months worth of food for several people or even several dozen people, I cannot think of a cheaper, more nutritious way to do it.

I store canned food, and more recently MRE's, but I don't normally eat them daily. So what I do is use them up on my hunting and fishing trips. I typically end up rotating them once a year.

Your idea about storing grains is probably a good one but getting me and my tribe to process them into something edible would be difficult. I think we would all be clamoring for MRE's in short order. Flour, beans, and rice make a little more sense for my situation, and that's something I'm beginning to stock up on. But canned food is going to remain # 1 with me for the forseeable future.

Regards, Vince

Yeah, I tried the Hormel chili in a box and its good.

t

Don't worry about trying the Italian or the Mexican style ground beef. Both smelled like spiced Alpo. My wife picked up three packs of the stuff for our camping trip, one of each flavor, and a regular ground beef. We opened one , the regular,our first night out, it was ok with pasta sauce. the other two, well, the peanut butter sandwiches we had were pretty good.