Prudent Food Storage

H. MREs - MEALS, READY TO EAT

This category includes more than the modern day military rations known by the above acronym, but also their civilian equivalents which are marketed by two of the major U.S. military MRE contractors, and a number of other products on the civilian market that fit better into this category than any other. Over the last several years the number of self-contained meals available in either the new style flexible pouches or old fashioned metal cans has greatly increased. I can't cover them all in detail so for this section I will cover only those meals that also include some form of self-contained heating device to warm the food to serving temperature. This allows one to have a hot meal yet needing no equipment other than a spoon to eat with. Whether you buy self-heating meals or supply the heat yourself to non-self heating meals you should investigate the offerings your local grocer may now be carrying. They have great potential for those situations where cooking food would be difficult or impossible.

H.1 U.S. MILITARY MREs

The Meal, Ready to Eat (MRE) is the current U.S. military field ration for those times when troops are out of contact with their regular mess facilities. In the early 1980's they replaced the older C & K-rations that had honorably served since the Second World War. These new rations represented a major leap forward in food preservation technology by disposing of the heavy, unwieldy metal can and replacing it with the much lighter, flexible "retort pouch". These pouches are the beefier cousins of the aluminized Mylar bag much used in long-term food storage and are basically constructed the same way. A thick outer layer of tough polyester film, a thin middle layer of aluminum foil for its excellent gas barrier properties, and an inner layer of food safe polypropylene film to allow heat sealing. Food is placed in the pouch then specially heat processed for preservation which renders it microbiologically shelf-stable, fully cooked, and ready to eat.

What's in an MRE?

From the Defense Logistics Agency Subsistence web site http://www.dscp.dla.mil/subs/rations/meals/mres.htm we find this:

All of which is then placed inside of a heavy plastic pouch and sealed. Being field rations they had to be designed to take considerable punishment in packs, air drops, and other forms of abuse remaining safely intact until consumed. By and large they do just that. All of this sounds rather attractive to the person interested in emergency preparedness and they are. So much so, in fact, that several years ago the U.S. military finally said "enough!" to the continuing losses of their rations to the civilian market and banned any further civilian sale. All new MRE complete ration packs now bear the words "U.S. Government Property. Commercial Resale Is Unlawful."

This did slow the loss rate somewhat, but anyone that wants the real thing can still get them from military personnel they may know, at gun shows, some military surplus shops, or via E-Bay. Whether you should do this is up to you, but I will give a couple of cautions here:

1. Being a back channel acquisition chances are you have no way of knowing the storage history of what you're buying. Maybe it's been sitting in some nice cool warehouse since it was produced or maybe it bounced around in the back of a deuce-and-a-half in the Nevada desert for a month last summer. If you don't know where it's been how can you estimate how much useful shelf-life it may have left?


2. Make sure what you're buying really is a military MRE or MRE component. Some of the civilian commercial products can look remarkably similar, but are not quite the same. Know what you're looking at and make it clear with the person you're buying from that you want genuine military issue (if that's what you want).

MRE Heaters: These devices will either come with your MRE at the time of purchase or they can be bought separately. They contain a small amount of salt, magnesium, and iron and when you add a small amount of water they undergo a flameless chemical reaction that will heat an 8 oz MRE entree by roughly 100° Fahrenheit (37°C) in about ten minutes. As water is what starts the reaction it is imperative the heaters be kept dry until used. If stored in an area of high humidity the heaters can undergo a slow reaction leading to degraded performance later or even complete failure over time. As a part of the chemical reaction the heaters release small amounts of hydrogen gas which is generally harmless but large numbers of heaters in a damp, sealed storage area could conceivably present a danger. This is unlikely unless you're storing many cases of heaters. In such an event keep them in an air tight storage container with some desiccant.

For more detailed information on U.S. military, civilian, some foreign military MREs, and other rations please see the excellent MRE Info website at http://www.mreinfo.com/index.html

H.1.1 U.S. MILITARY MRE SHELF LIFE

Much discussion has gone into how long one should keep MREs on hand before rotating them out of stock. In this regard they're no different than any other type of preserved food. The longer you keep them on hand the more unpalatable and non-nutritious they will become with heat playing a large role in shortening their useful lifespan.

The short answer to the shelf-life question (from http://www.dscp.dla.mil/subs/rations/meals/mres.htm) is simply "The shelf life of the MRE is three (3) years at 80 ° F. However, the shelf life can be extended through the use of cold storage facilities prior to distribution".

Of course, that's at 80° Fahrenheit (27°C). What if your storage temperature is different? Then you need the storage life chart that was developed by the U.S. Army's NATIC Research Laboratories which basically says that at a given storage temperature an MRE will remain palatable for so many months as illustrated below:

Note: As with any other stored food, time and temperature have a cumulative effect. For example, storage at 100° F. for 11 months moved to 70°F(21°C) would lose one half of the 70°F. storage.

A complete shelf-life chart for all U.S. military rations may be found here: http://www.dscp.dla.mil/subs/subsbo/qapubs/table.pdf

Updated: 9/18/96; 4/16/97; 7/21/97; 10/20/97; 9/15/98; 11/02/99; 12/01/03

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003. Alan T. Hagan. All rights reserved.

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