MRE's

[brokenscout]

Around any Military Base

[Inconel710]

I pick mine up on base - $7.30 for the real deal MRE, but they also make Training meals that have pretty much the same stuff. Those are only $4.30.

[ldmaster]

I find someone who indicates they have several cases and several menus. I buy ONE case, in the ensuing email exchanges I say i would like to buy MORE cases, but not go through Ebay to do it.

It always seems to work out well. As long as Ebay doesn't see your email exchanges (use direct email for this). Until you win a bid, you cant directly communicate with a seller - it's Ebay's way of making sure what I outlined doesn't happen.

I've never gotten a bad case of anything. In general if you get to six cases or more, the shipping costs go way down too.

The only real difference in a civilian vs a military MRE is the heater pack, the civilian one cant have them because it constitutes a hazardous material. Don't ask me why military MRE's get shipped by UPS all the time without the fee, doesn't make much sense.

in general MRE's are stockpiled by various government agencies for various purposes, sometimes it's for fire crews, sometimes for disaster relief. The shelf life of an MRE is directly related to how cold/warm the MRE is stored and for how long.

There is NO WAY to tell with an MRE whether it has been in hot weather too long (and thereby had it's shelf life lessened) inspectors for the military tear the MRE's apart and send the contents to a lab for testing. I don't know the entire list of criteria, but nutrients (aside from calories) are killed off by heat, so any vitamins in a food will decrease with exposure to heat, I woujld imagine that this is the main thing they test for. Retort packaged food just doesn't go "bad" all bacteria are killed. To survive in a retort package it would have to be very heat resistant, and have survived the original cooking and packaging process. Anaerobic (dont need oxygen to reproduce) and aerobic (needs oxygen) bacteria run the gamut in terms of how dangerous they are to consume. Neither is good or safe.

I have eaten 80's era MRE's in 2005. No ill effects, zero taste though!

So i just don't worry if an MRE is "late production dated", because unless I'm buying it from the manufacturer, that Jan-2010 MRE could have been stored for 8 months in a warehouse on the docks in South Florida, and that would be equivalent to having been stored in a 70 degree house for 10 years. here's a a link to shelf-life for MRE's and temperature:

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/safetycentral_2152_145030709


My only requirements for eating MOST MRE main dishes is the addition of WATER and hotsauce. The water makes it more like stew, less gummy and the hotsauce covers any taste that you might have gotten from it. It's mostly tasteless anyway, so at least you get SOME taste. But adding water is key.
The guy I currently get mine from gets them from a national guard unit that rotates their stock and sells excess to the local area.

[StagLefty]

The only real difference in a civilian vs a military MRE is the heater pack, the civilian one cant have them because it constitutes a hazardous material.

All the internet places I buy my civilian MRE's they are offered with or without heaters.