Talk:Meal, Ready-to-Eat

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Here are some tasks you can do: Cleanup: Two broken links in the first paragraph. First Strike Ration (FSR) and the Unitized Group Ration-Express (UGR-E. I don't know if someone wants to create articles for these or to remove them.

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Contents 1 addition request 2 Better, better & better 2.1 What is an Entree? 3 Freeze dried entrees? 4 Foreign MREs 5 Maker 6 http://www.mreinfo.com/mres.html 7 Photos of contents 8 MRE humor/satire 9 Menus 10 no mention of the retort pouch 11 Quality vs. palatability 12 Requirements/contents 13 Alternate Uses Clean-up

[edit] addition request

Someone should add a new section/page on the reduced-calorie humanitarian MRE's used in Iraq & Afgahnistan, among other places. These were/are yellow & blue in packaging, and the menus are tailored to specific regions (vegetarian for certain cultures, for example).

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I do not think that outright wrong and highly misleading units of measure would belong in an encyclopedia. The "calorie" is a 1/1000 of a kcal and it really does not help that some "lay men" might use it. -- Egil 07:04 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC)

Your change looks good to me; I just didn't want the context to be lost (nutrition as opposed to physics). Hephaestos 18:18 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC)

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Would like more information on non-entree items, such as distribution among menus, nutritional information, alternate uses, etc. For example, a table with:

MRE contents	Manufacturer	Nutritional information	Menus	Notes
Chocolate Dairy Shake	The Wornick Company	1000 calories 20 grams fat 70 grams sodium	1, 3, 15	Severe laxative properties

70 grams sodium?

Boy, this food kills your soldiers. -- Toytoy 20:47, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

That was only an example for a table, not the actual contents.

[edit] Better, better & better

In 1983, a field evaluation was conducted with the 25th Infantry Division for 34 days. They ate nothing but MREs three times a day. Although troops rated the ration as acceptable, consumption was low - only about 60% of the calories provided were consumed.

Another test in 1986 with the same division resulted in increased consumption and acceptance.

My theory: The knew if they reject the MRE, they'll be forced to eat the new formula next year. So they learned to eat the MREs. Poor soldiers. -- Toytoy 15:05, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What is an Entree?

As a speaker of recieved English I was wondering what part of the meal the Entree is supposed to be?

--Sf 11:53, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

See the articles on entree and main course. It's the "important" part of the meal.--Westendgirl 02:30, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

There are two broken links at the end of the first paragraph for the First Strike Ration (FSR) and the Unitized Group Ration-Express (UGR-E) Tommy Blueseed 14:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Those pages haven't been started yet...so the links are there so the pages will be linked as soon as they are created. I encourage you to create pages for the FSR and UGR-E, since I don't know much about them. =) Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 22:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

At Pangborn 2003, Natick labs was giving away glossy flyers on the FSR. I have a copy at work. When I find time I'll try to find it and add info as needed.Jeh25 16:59, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanxs. =) Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 21:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I added the an entry for the FSR. It could certainly use more work, but it's a start.Jeh25 00:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Freeze dried entrees?

• http://theepicenter.com/mre_military_meal_ready_to_eat.html

Made by the same people who make the famous Mountain House brand of freeze dried food, and these are over-runs from last years military production. Their shelf life is 5 years.

These are just the Entree from the ultra rare, Long Range Patrol (LRP) rations. ...

The Beef stew is packed in white packages to help conceal in snow pack situations. The Chicken is in brown packaging (not shown, and in very limited supply).

So they have freeze-dried MREs (chicken & rice, beefstew)? -- Toytoy 15:12, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

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Just thought I'd mention: In basic training at Ft. Knox (2001), we would kill each other for the vegitarian MRE's, simply because they would let you eat the candy to keep your calorie count up.

PS: They ARE NOT freeze-dried, but just packaged and preserved to withstand some six-billion rads of gamma radiation or so. The MRE XX Series is quite good, actually, with even the Bean Burrito passing as both somewhat edible and able to stop small-caliber rounds. On the upside, with all of the preservatives, I don't think they will have to enbalm me when I die...

[edit] Foreign MREs

The failure to properly dispose of 330,000 MREs from Britain should be incorporated here. freestylefrappe 21:53, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Updated broken URL. That may be newsworthy, but it may not have a lot of permanence. Eptin 06:02, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maker

Who makes MRE's for the US Army?

Supercool Dude 22:04, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Im not sure if it changes with the entry, but i know for sure (im eating on at the time that im reading this) that Menu No. 18 (Turkey Breast W/ Gravy and Potatoes) are packaged by SOPAKCO Packaging; Mullins, SC 29574-1047. Also, many of the things included in MRE's that are commercial products like Kool Aide, Gaterade (both are in powdered form), M&Ms, Ritz Bitz, etc. are sold to the Army and they specially package them. Though they arent labeled as Kool Aide (on it it says Beverage Based Powder-Cherry Flavor) the taste is identical. So the Army doesnt make the MRE's, they package them for deployment. And btw, they are quite good.Xlegiofalco 20:37, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] http://www.mreinfo.com/mres.html

large portion of text found on this page was directly taken from above link. Positive it violates some copyright...

[edit] Photos of contents

I've changed the image of the contents to Image:MRE contents.jpg, since Image:Contents of MRE.jpg had some weird licensing issues. Of course, as I was uploading it I found Image:MRE No. 23.jpg on commons. Oh well. I think mine looks better. ;-> Should we also include Image:MREGal.jpg? --Christopherlin 09:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I can also get an image of the orange-colored humanitarian daily ration. --Christopherlin 09:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MRE humor/satire

How about this one: Image:MREGal.jpg? Found it on commons. --Christopherlin 04:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Menus

The menus section seems far too long and inappropriate for an encyclopedia article. We should probably shorten it to just one year, as an example. —Keenan Pepper 06:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems such a shame to eliminate all that compiled knowledge. Unless it is easily accessible on a website. Then we could just link to it. Otherwise, if no such lists are around the Internet, maybe we should consider making an article "List of MRE menus by year" or somesuch. --Crisu 05:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Here you go: [1] --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] no mention of the retort pouch

there is no mention of the retort pouch that is used to store the main part of the meal, its an intresting part and theres not even a wiki entre for it? http://science.howstuffworks.com/mre4.htm (info link) 86.142.12.150 13:51, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

YOu can mention the retort pouch in this MRE article, if you want. :-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:51, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quality vs. palatability

There is a misleading sentence in the article, to wit: "Early MREs were notoriously poor in quality..." I was in the Army when the first version of MREs were fielded in the early 1980s. The 'quality' of MREs was never poor. They were certainly edible and were properly packaged for field use. However, some of the early entree items were not very palatable, which I think is what the writer is trying to convey. Dehydrated items were among the least successful and were soon deleted from MREs. The two that I still have vivid memories of over 20 years later are the dehydrated pork pattie and the dehydrated beef pattie, both of which were complete failures. But to say that the 'quality' was poor strikes me as incorrect. By the way: even the earliest MREs were a big improvement over C Rations, which were abysmal. Frankwomble 15:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, I tweaked the "Criticisms" section to address your concerns. --Deathphoenix ʕ 13:33, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I had an MRE last night for a snack. My wife got it from her boss, who got it from someone else, etc. The entree was not bad at all. A little Tabasco gave it more flavor. If the one I had is any indication, MREs have come a long way since their beginnings.Jlujan69 21:07, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requirements/contents

Is the main course/entree always a starch, as stated currently? And regarding beverages, the MRE contains one or more powdered beverages, correct? Silarius 19:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, an MRE contains a powdered fruit drink (basically Kool-Aid), a coffee packet and if you're lucky some powdered iced tea. I can't really recall if the iced tea replaced the fruit drink or not, however.

Also, I just edited the page to add a section on 'MRE bombs'. Although I was hesitant to give instructions, since anywhere you go where there's an MRE someone will eventually start screwing around with these. They're not bad until someone decides to be cute and fill it with urine or gravel... User:Wild_T

[edit] Alternate Uses Clean-up

Until reading this article, I was unaware you could make an IEB(Impovised Exploding Bottle) out of the heating element. Maybe this should be removed so that no civilians injure themselves? Ball of pain 18:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored...but at the same time, WP:BEANS also applies. Pages like Dry ice bomb, Chlorine bomb, and Amish bomb (which got deleted, maybe for the reason you stated?) are also in danger if safety is an issue. However, I guess the choice is up to you to edit down the section to not explicitly state how to build a IEB. =D Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 06:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I know that this has given some of my friends ideas. We recently had some MRE's and my friends decided to do this, of course we did it safely, but others might not. My sugestion would be to scale it down so it explains what happens, but not how to do it (IE. they would put the Heater into the bottle and then let the bottle explode). Probally won't help that much but it might.--70.156.148.94 00:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok...I'll cut it down. =) Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 00:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Or how about a Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer? Anyways, I think cutting it down to a vaguer version won't hurt anyone...especially since instruction on contructing a IEB isn't exactly encyclopedic. Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 01:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)