I have some MRE "Food Packet Survival General Purpose" that are in a little cardboard box and have the date 3/95 on them. Are these any good? Or should i chuck them and find something else to store for emergencies? I was thinking put a few in our vehicles but don't know if they expire or not. I found them when i was helping someone move out of a house. they said i could have them so i took them. They've got in them:

1 sugar packet
1 iced tea with lemon mix
1 chicken flavored broth mix
1 wintergreen bar
1 chocolate chip dessert bar
1 shortbread bar
1 granola bar
2 cornflake cereal bars

its in a cardboard box that is 4"Hx4"Tx2"w

Any information would be appreciated.

kirby

Here is a good source of info. I would be leery of stuff that old but that's just me.

You could pull the accessory packet before you toss them (and toss them you should). The spoon, TP, matches, stuff like that, don't expire...

There is no accessory packet it's just what i listed. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> I was hoping they might still be alright. I've eaten a few of the bars to see if they were still edible. Some of the packets looked like water had gotten to them so i got rid of the sugar and drink mixes. The bars are all in their vacuum sealed green bags. I was hoping because they were still sealed they would be fine.

Too bad. I don't think that I would take the risk with 11 year old food. Might be safe, might not...

Please note "Food Packet, Survival General Purpose" is not the same as MRE's. They are deigned for differant purposes.
The survival food packet contains some pretty stable items. I have used the older style survival food packets stored in a metal can that were twenty years old. They tasted as good, or as bad, as when fresh. Not much can go wrong as long as they were kept sealed.

"There is nothing so frightening as ignorance in action."

well i just recieved an email back from mreinfo.com and was provided a link to this http://www.dscp.dla.mil/subs/rations/programs/survival/gpiabt.asp

i was informed that the components should be alright but taste testing is the only way to tell. I think i will leave a couple in my truck and if i really need them then they will be there but i will look for better ideas when i have the money.

The ration bars are made by Sterling Foods out of San Antonio. I had contacted them years ago about getting some, and I could then buy directly from them, but the minimum order was too large for my needs at the time. I did get them to send me some for free, however. I think I need to contact them about getting a load, if they will sell me any now.

I've eaten these things, even out-of-date but I doubt that much out-of-date, and they are not bad - and they are pretty well protected by the triple laminate barrier material. They are edible for quite a while, the intention being to have something that was stable at ambient conditions for at least five years. They get more stale over time, but they never had much water in them, so they hold up. There is a minimum of protein to them, they are mostly carbohydrate. I kind of like the cornflake bars, maybe because there isn't anything else like them, but I like them the best. The shortbread bars are okay, not really good shortbread like Walker's, not so buttery, more like a hardbread, but okay. The wintergreen bars or tablets are like the English Kendall mint cake - pure sugar with some flavoring; unfortunately for me, the flavoring in these is wintergreen, and I hate wintergreen. The chocolate chip cookie bar leaves a cloying aftertaste, and it makes me want water to get it out of my mouth. The granola bar is okay, too. The instant tea is okay; you can get this in MREs - some of the bars occur in MREs as well. The soup base is basically the same thing you would have with a package of Herb-Ox chicken bouillion, maybe packaged a little more robustly..

Life support international apparently sells some items to civilians now, but there's a minimum order of like $150

http://www.lifesupportintl.com/shop/categories.asp?cID=453

It looks like what they are offering are the old versions of the air force ration. The new ones are Survival, General Purpose, Improved. GPI. The one in the picture is what they used to make before they "improved" it. (I don't know what they improved, but, they have been making the new version for several years, so I would check the dates on any older ones.)

The key thing for the survival rations is they are designed to not induce thirst, because they assume you might not have access to much water in a SERE situation. They are mostly carbo's, only a little protein. They are the rations in the ejection seats I believe. They were supposed to keep you alive for a couple days until the Jolly Green arrived.