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Doing some cleaning and rearranging today....
In the basement (dark and cool)"preps" area.
Found a MRE #2 Chili and Macaroni unopened....Desert Storm era (1990's)
Also have a case of the commercial version form...cira Y2K
Open the still sealed package....and the Mini Tabasco is very dark.....LOL
Haven't opened anything else yet.....
What do you think?
If nothing has killed you yet MREs are not going to do it!
They are required to meet 3 years from date of packing. Under proper storage conditions they can not be trusted explicitly but tend to hold up for years more. Beyond that it depends on the luck of the draw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhBO92_DB7I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUpcJthGVI0
Honestly, if none of the MREInfo guys have died yet I'd venture to say the dangerous microbes are pretty rare. My takeaway from them has been to stay away from dry milk anything though. It seems to be the first thing to go bad, along with anything it's in.
Open it but pack a gun.
And a spare mag in case whatever's in it just won't go down and stay there.
Did find this.......
http://beprepared.com/blog/3496/mre-...at-shelf-life/
I believe this one...and I think there is another in one of the truck packs....were picked up at a yard sale...on maybe it was a surplus store....back when.
Not hungry enough to try any of packets......book matches did light...and the cute little swath of TP, wipes, salt, pepper, sugar are all were all still sealed in the bag....
Has a heater as well.....
Those original heaters must have really been something. Some of them work better today than the new ones freshly packaged.
I have opened several MRE's (military and civilian) that are well beyond their expiration date. The entree's all seemed to hold up fairly well. Some of the sides (pears and apple sauce come to mind) didn't seem to fair so well.
LOL!Quote:
Originally Posted by kyratshooter
When I was in, we were transitioning from C-rats to MRE's. I swear those C-rats were from WWII, but we ate 'em anyway!
http://www.mreinfo.com/mres/mre-shelf-life/
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I tried searching for past posts about this topic. I know we have discussed it somewheres.....anyways, a few years ago, I decided to polish off my MRE supply. In 2002, I was activated as an Army Reservist to help with the winter Olympics. We established temporary barracks for the National Guardsmen who would pull security. Remember that Reservists and Active Duty military cannot "police" American Citizens, but National Guardsmen are under different rules. Anyways, we had to have a specific amount of "emergency" food on hand for every soldier that was stationed at our Barracks. At the end of the ordeal, they were practically giving away the MRE boxes, and I ended up with 6 full cases of 12 each. So, around 2012, I decided that I should probably use them up. I basically just brought them to work every day for lunch. Over those 10 years, I had given some to my brother in law to take on Boy Scout campouts, or used them myself on Boy Scout campouts. I noticed that when I did that, the heaters were mostly bad (they didn't work). At work, I just filled a big huge insulated mug with the hot water from the coffee maker and stuck the entree in there to heat up. For the most part, the entrees were good. Any side dishes that had fruit (think applesauce or fruit salad) were definitely bad. The peanut butter was fine. The cheese was good but not as good as a fresh package. The crackers and wheat bread were good. All the M&Ms were toast. Their packaging had failed (the glue released) and the remaining candy was scattered all over the main package and in tiny pieces. I would give the skittles to the scouts because it was like eating a rock.
So, for a final answer after 10 years (assuming these were new when I got them), some things were good and some not so good. One thing this taught me is that MRE's suck as long term food storage. I do buy MRE parts for backpacking and camping, but not whole meals.
I have a bunch of MRE's from emergency essentials that I bought between 2005 and 2009. Think I best be eating them!