MRE

Usually on General Conference weekend we rotate the food in our 72 hour kits. I had mentioned to Will that I would like to "use" our kits as if we were in an emergency situation that weekend to see if we really could sustain ourselves and because we need to use up the food in them as we are not taking them with us. He hesitated saying that he didn't think we should use them, just in case.

I have been packing and trying make sure that we will have enough space for everything we want to take and I needed the backpacks. I am going to let the girls pack their own carry on and whatever they can fit in there, they can take and everything else will be left here. So I emptied 2 of the 72 hour kits yesterday and decided to make dinner with the MRE's in there. I had bought those official military MRE's from someone selling them at the Kam Hwy swap meet when we first moved here and they were only a couple bucks each.

So I made the Chicken Noodle and Vegetables in sauce from Mariah's bag and the Pasta and Vegetables in Alfredo sauce from Brinlee's and then I took just the MRE from Will's made the Pasta and Vegetables in Tomato sauce.

When I opened those bags, I was SHOCKED to find out all the stuff that comes in one of those. I assumed that it was just the meal that was printed on the outside of the box, but NOPE! There was a little pack with drink powder, TP, tabasco sauce, a spoon, 2 pcs of gum and salt. Plus there was a granola bar, a pouch full of peanut butter and either crackers or a piece of wheat bread, another large drink pouch and a pouch of pears or peaches with a small candy treat like hard candies or a package of M&M's. I thought the $2 bucks I had paid was WAY worth it.

I decided to boil some water and prepare them the way I would if we were in an emergency, especially since I thought my kids would eat them better warm. They each tried all of the kinds and each settled on one they preferred. They ate an ok amount, they weren't excited over it and even I thought, well, if I were starving this would probably taste pretty good. It did have a different taste, but I just thought that it was probably because of the way it's cooked and packaged.

Well, then we started opening the other stuff. The crackers were stale as all get out. The peanuts in the nut packs were totally rancid and I took a bite out of this Snickers peanut bar immediately spit it out and rinsed my mouth 4 times with tap water. The roll of "hard" candies were so squishy then felt like gummy candies. The only thing that was semi edible was the piece of wheat bread that Mariah and Asia split and seemed to really like with the PB that was still fine. There were 2 oat and honey granola bars, both of which were rancid. I couldn't find a date on a single thing, so whoever sold these to me must have had them a while and we've been here 3 years now. I finally found one package of cheese crackers w/PB that had an exp date of July 2000. Needless to say they were very expired. I was so thankful that we never had a real emergency happen. We would have been pretty hungry. Luckily we wouldn't have starved because the PB pouches were all still good.

I will definitely go the MRE route again in the future because they are so darn handy, but I will definitely make sure that I purchase them from someone reputable that can verify the date!