MRE meals

[Ranger99]

For whatever reason, I was wanting
to carry a pack I put together a while
back on  a long walk I was going
to do. I'd used the outdated food items
some time back and replaced it with
some energy bars and peanut butter
packages and a couple of MREs
Never gave it a thought until carrying
the pack for a while.
The MREs weigh a little over 2 pounds
apiece on my fish scale. For whatever
reason, I had in mind of the Mountain House
freeze dried meal packs I've used.
Of course, I wasn't thinking about the
Mountain House need water added and
the MREs are already ready to go and
there's the accessory pack and heater
etc. in the MRE package that adds to
the weight. I'm told that a MRE has enough
nutrients and food value to not need
your 3 squares when moving about like you
would if using the backpacking/camping
lightweight food, but I don't know that
for a fact. I guess trying to carry around
a dozen cans of soup wouldn't work at
all either

[ironglow]

..Another thing hikers are discovering.  It is growing to be a great food that works much like pemmican.
  It contains all the necessary ingredients...plus we know it lasts along time..

     https://collinstreet.com/blog/fruitcake-is-fuel

[O-mega]

For whatever reason, I was wanting
to carry a pack I put together a while
back on  a long walk I was going
to do. I'd used the outdated food items
some time back and replaced it with
some energy bars and peanut butter
packages and a couple of MREs
Never gave it a thought until carrying
the pack for a while.
The MREs weigh a little over 2 pounds
apiece on my fish scale. For whatever
reason, I had in mind of the Mountain House
freeze dried meal packs I've used.
Of course, I wasn't thinking about the
Mountain House need water added and
the MREs are already ready to go and
there's the accessory pack and heater
etc. in the MRE package that adds to
the weight. I'm told that a MRE has enough
nutrients and food value to not need
your 3 squares when moving about like you
would if using the backpacking/camping
lightweight food, but I don't know that
for a fact. I guess trying to carry around
a dozen cans of soup wouldn't work at
all either

MREs are capable of sustaining you at minimum one per day (rationing), 2 is preferred.  When I went to an army course that had a bunch of patrolling involved, before going out, they would issue a weeks' worth of rations, enough for two per day but we would open them all up and discard as much as we could, such as the heaters (couldn't use them anyway), cocoa, cool aid, (scent carries a long way in the deep woods) spoons, (kept one) cardboard packaging etc.  I think each MRE has over 1200 calories on average, which is about half the number of recommended daily calories.

[Ranger99]

yessir
removing all the extras besides the main meal
reduces the weight and bulk
i guess it's a minor trade off for something ready
right here right now versus needing to boil water
to "cook" a freeze dried meal, the bulk and weight
of the water and having to be exposed to make
fire and such.
in a camping/hiking/casual type situation it wouldn't
be a critical thing so much as if you're trying to
stay low key and unobserved

[Lloyd Smale]

survival training they gave us one dehydrated main course and sent us on our way for a week. Told us if when we came back and didnt turn that meal back in we flunked. They used it as a phycological tool. They knew youd get REAL hungry and you had food right in your pack to tempt you to give up.