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When soldiers go into the field, they carry with them tiny miracles of engineering. And we're not just talking about weaponry: some very technical and forward-thinking research has gone into military meals. They must be light and easy to carry, capable of staying edible even after weeks in the hot sun, supply the surprisingly high number of calories that soldiers in the field need (more than 4,000 a day), and, of course, not cost the taxpayer an inordinate amount. That has led to some clever tricks of science that have even made their way into the goods you may find on your shopping list.
One of the most interesting items in army rations, from an innovation perspective, is the bread, says writer Anastacia Marx de Salcedo, author of the book Combat-Ready Kitchen. Freshly baked bread begins going stale the moment it comes out of the oven, as strands of a starch called amylose spread all throughout its structure and start to harden. Amylose can be snipped up by enzymes called amylases, but these are denatured by heat as the bread cooks – hence the generally unappealing, razor-to-the-gums qualities of a baguette after a few days.
In the mid-20th Century, however, food scientists at Kansas State College with connections to the US military discovered that adding amylases that stand up to heat changed the equation. These enzymes, which come from heat-tolerant bacteria, kept right on snipping after baking, keeping bread almost eerily soft and flexible and giving it a long shelf-life.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday May 21 2017, @05:26PM (11 children)
Oh please, MREs date back to the early 80s.
I've eaten that bread and it tastes strange, then again all non-homemade bread kinda tastes strange. Its not much stranger than wonder-bread.
For more fun we could discuss the conspiracy theories around the distribution of flavors, some are strong binary reaction like I personally enjoy the omelette if I have a MRE heater but perhaps 75% of the population hates them. Also in the early 90s they had an oat bar like nothing I've ever eaten since. And there used to be about two flavors a decent cake. Anyway there are also flavors that everyone likes such as the ravioli and the spaghetti-Os. And there's (non-serious?) conspiracy theories about why a quarter of every case is always essentially inedible to perhaps a quarter of soldiers. Supposedly designed that way for unit cohesion use your stomach to force soldiers to do trading deals. Whatever.
They are very sugary high carb meals. Definitely for field / camping / hiking use only.
Personally I think the spicy meals are the most disgusting as your stomach is usually a little jittery outside doing stuff anyway so here comes weird as hell spicy chicken and you're gonna puke or just not be able to force it down.
I wouldn't say MRE's are cheap but they're cheaper than restaurant prices. If you're paying more than ten bucks per meal you're getting seriously ripped off. In bulk in boxes you're paying like $5 per for a case of a semi-random dozen.
Thankfully the menu rotates every year. Unfortunately when you're deployed it likely won't rotate. So get used to six to ten menus because thats all you get.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @05:34PM (6 children)
Keep reading. MREs entered the public eye in 2005 when they were distributed to Katrina victims. Immediately preceding the popularity of Facebook. Coincidence, I think not. The people stopped protesting war after the economic collapse which followed. Suddenly protesters didn't care about war anymore, instead they protested their own empty pockets, and they were promptly told to shut up and stop whining.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:12PM
Shut up and keep winning!!! Trump Trump Trump!!!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:57PM (3 children)
Uh, dude, there were people selling MREs to Y2K preppers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:22PM (2 children)
After Katrina I gave leftover MREs as christmas presents to friends and family just so they could share the joy. I still have family.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:55PM (1 child)
Or so you think. Reality: they are a bunch of shape-shifter lizard-people.
(grin)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @02:58PM
Those are only on my wife's side of the family.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:23PM
"entered the public eye"
So, uhhhh, what does public consciousness of MRE's have to do with anything?
Bit of trivia for you: there were commercial equivalents to MRE's about '72, and maybe earlier. Boil some water, open the pouch, pour some water into the pouch, let it sit for a couple minutes, and you've got instant omelette, or whatever. Except, it didn't quite work out that way. My pouch melted down, releasing the hot water, and all the food, onto my foot. Mine probably wasn't the only one to do that. Someone sued, and that's why the people preparing these meals decided to drop the pouch into boiling water, instead of pouring the water into the pouch. It's much safer that way.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:21PM (2 children)
They have to be if you want to cram 4000 calories in there. If they could make you eat flavor enriched lard they would.
The American MRE's are fairly expensive here, usually about $15 each. As I recall they have/serve a Norwegian product instead -- It's NATO standard and all -- called Real TurMat (I guess you have to know Norwegian or Swedish to get that little play with words) . It's a bit hit and miss in my book. I guess the spaghetti and meatsauce (or some variant of it - or "chili") is fairly common, I'd rate it at eatable to okay. The chicken dishes and the beef stew are also okay. The "veggie" meals imho are beyond human consumption, I think I'd rather eat the plastic container. The Real TurMat usually go for less then $10 each in the outdoor stores but then that is only the main meal bag and not the little extras you get in the army bag. The difference between the civilian and military version is the that you can pick and choose as a civilian but for the military version you get a little bag with the your entire days meal plus some other things such as a few pieces of hard candy, crackers, beef jerky, nuts, energy bars, some orange flavored beverages, some freeze dried coffee and a package with some hot sauce. There used to be a decent Goulash soup but I have not seen that in a long time.
https://drytech.no/en/ [drytech.no]
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:55PM (1 child)
I bought a case of MRE's back in the early 90's (about $50 for 12 from some Seattle military and police company* whose name I can't remember). I would take them on overnight backpacking trips, supplemented with 5 minute rice cooked using a Bakepacker. I would cook the rice while simultaneously warming the foil envelope on top of the bag. I used the dessert to supplement GORP or a can of tuna for the hike out, the main entrée with rice for dinner and the side dish with rice for breakfast. A nice, sealed, compact package for most of three meals. Of course, you had to pack out all the foil packs and what not, but the main MRE envelope provided a perfect bag to wrap them all up. I checked again a few years ago about purchasing some more, but the effing preppers have driven the price up to ridiculous levels.
*They had some really cool stuff in their catalogues, but you had to have proper police credentials to purchase a lot of it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 22 2017, @01:08PM
There's "I wanna look tacti-cool at the laser tag game" and those guys will pay $15+ per MRE and then at the other extreme of cost there's online like "epicenter mre" I've bought stuff from them and they're going rate is about $80 a case which WRT camping is cheaper than fast food and you get a whole meal for less than a mountain house camping entree. Although mountain house freeze dried stuff is lighter and tastier.
Yeah in theory you can feed a family of 4 for like $4 off the fast food dollar menu, but back on planet earth good luck escaping from a chain like Culvers for less than $30 for a family of 4, which is more expensive than MREs even including shipping. Then again when out camping especially if the weather is bad, going off site to a fast food restaurant is kinda fun. If you were trying to save money you probably wouldn't be on vacation anyway.
Also civilians don't realize it but you can buy single MRE entrees for $2 to $3 if you don't want the whole meal experience and the MRE entrees pack better and the cost isn't too ridiculous, a can of ravioli will be like $1.50 at the store and $2.25 in MRE form, so 75 cents here or there, whatever.
Good luck with food allergies everything is contaminated with wheat and soy and whatnot, its all kinda gross processed stuff.
I live in the "recreational state north" and you can buy MREs for hunting and camping and whatever else at supermarkets and I believe sams club or costco had some last time I was there.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday May 22 2017, @05:58AM
Meals Rejected by Ethiopians :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.