Purchasing real MREs legally

[harry hood]

I'm interested in a getting a small stockpile of MREs for general disaster preparedness, say food for a family of four for two weeks. Every place I've found online seems either to be selling what appears to be stolen or fake overpriced MRE-like things that are probably made in China and won't last a month.

Does anyone have suggestions on where to buy them? I don't mind paying a premium, I just don't want to end up with counterfeit stuff or boxes that were rejected because they were left in a trailer in the desert for a month.

Why does the government make this so difficult? It seems like a lot of research has gone into developing these and it's in everyone's best interest to be somewhat prepared for natural disasters.

[Jamie Buxton]

This isn't MREs, but it is what I keep for emergency food supplies. It is freeze-dried food, packed in nitrogen-filled cans. It has a shelf life of twenty five years.
http://www.nitro-pak.com/mountain-house-easy-meal-security-pak

[Rich Riddle]

Having eaten more than one's fair share of MRE's, I decided to use another supplier for emergency preparedness. Many military surplus stores seem to stock them if you are dead set on ingesting Meals Refused by Everyone, Meals Refusing to Exit, etc.

[harry hood]

I'm not dead set on it by any means, it just seemed that they'd be ideal for this since they are designed for a long shelf life, completely self-contained, and nutritional OK. I've never been in the service but have eaten them a few times backpacking.

What supplier did you use? Thanks,

[harry hood]

Interesting. Have you eaten any?

[Montgomery Scott]

Mountain House is the dog food of freeze dried food.

Costco sells emergency FD food http://www.costco.com/emergency-kits-supplies.html but I haven't tried any of it.

I buy my backpacking supplies from http://www.ldpcampingfoods.com/ but they are on the expensive side and not really marketed for emergency stores.

[Jamie Buxton]

Interesting. Have you eaten any?

Is that question aimed at me, about Mountain House freeze-dried? Yes, I've eaten it. I don't think it is as bad as Montgomery thinks. The way I see it, the chief attribute is that the food will be available when the next 8.4 earthquake happens. Before you buy a whole bunch canned in nitrogen, you could buy a few packs at any outdoors store, and see what you think.

[harry hood]

It was, sorry. I'm posting from my phone and the interface confuses me sometimes. Thanks for the info, I'll order some and try it out.

[Bill Cunningham]

The Canadian military uses a lot of 'boil in bag' stuff, some of it is pretty good. When they go out on a training exercise, they are not allowed to return any foodstuff to stores, so it just gets collected by any soldier that wants it.. I usually try to track these fellows down, and see what they have..Most of the time they just give it to me, or we do a little bartering, and I walk away with enough for my next 10 day solo canoe trip..

[Stephen Cherry]

Why not just go to costco, choose some canned and dried foods that you would like to eat, and stock up. Keep plenty on hand, and replace what you use with new. I'm assuming you have some sort of off grid cooking, like a coleman stove. Pasta lasts forever. Flour. rice. Baked beans, and on and on.

There is no reason to make it so complex when there are plenty of stable foods out there.

[Rich Riddle]

The Canadian military uses a lot of 'boil in bag' stuff, some of it is pretty good. When they go out on a training exercise, they are not allowed to return any foodstuff to stores, so it just gets collected by any soldier that wants it.. I usually try to track these fellows down, and see what they have..Most of the time they just give it to me, or we do a little bartering, and I walk away with enough for my next 10 day solo canoe trip..
Bill,

When we went on long trips, many of our military members would throw out the left over MRE's. Any parts of the meal you didn't want you just tossed in the huge box, even if it was a full MRE. Usually we had an enormous box soldiers could pick through. We always had some soldier going around scrounging and taking tons of the stuff toward the end of training. I always thought they were starving and desperate.

[harry hood]

Yeah, that's sort of what we do now but we don't normally eat a lot of canned food so rotating stuff is hard. I think you guys have talked me out of my MRE idea though.

[Stephen Cherry]

Yeah, that's sort of what we do now but we don't normally eat a lot of canned food so rotating stuff is hard. I think you guys have talked me out of my MRE idea though.

I don't usually like it either, but I do like some. Baked beans I do like. I can eat canned chili. Some canned or jarred pasta sauce. Canned fish. And of course, SPAM, a food in it's own food group.

[Rich Riddle]

I don't usually like it either, but I do like some. Baked beans I do like. I can eat canned chili. Some canned or jarred pasta sauce. Canned fish. And of course, SPAM, a food in it's own food group.
They still produce SPAM? I haven't seen that in years. Some of the items in MRE's were very good, like the dehydrated fruit. Others, like the dehydrated pork patties, would get buried in a huge hole in the desert floor.

[Jason Roehl]

Grow what you like in a garden, eat fresh while you are able, then can the excess. Eat the canned goods through the winter, but hold some back each year until you have a stockpile that you can rotate--always eat the oldest first, adding new each year, but don't let it get more than 2-3 years old.

Looking at all those ready-to-eat manufactured options, they're all very, very expensive on a per-meal basis. For our family of 5, we average about $1-1.50 per person per meal. Many of those options are $5 and more per person per meal.

[Larry Whitlow]

They still produce SPAM? I haven't seen that in years. Some of the items in MRE's were very good, like the dehydrated fruit. Others, like the dehydrated pork patties, would get buried in a huge hole in the desert floor.

SPecial All purpose Meat. I hate to admit it, but we still have it occasionally for breakfast with fried eggs.

[John Pratt]

Real, honest to goodness, Authentic MREs are not available to the general public. In fact, they are illegal to sell and even military members can be prosecuted for selling them (and some have). Some MREs do find there way into military surplus stores, but so do a lot of things that shouldn't be there. At military commissaries, you can buy the exact same meal but it is in different packaging. For those that have been out of the military for some time, the meal selection and taste has improved considerably over the years. Gone are the dehydrated pork and beef patties ( or the dreaded ham loaf) and some of the meals are actually quite good now.

[Derek Gilmer]

I've used/eaten wise foods http://wisefoodstorage.com/ quite a bit and been very happy. No consumer available item is going to have the heater that comes in a MRE. It is that heater that makes them a no-go for civilians. But if you are prepping for a disaster surely you are prepped to make fire to heat your food :)

[Dave Anderson NH]

As a genuine old fart I am cracking up about the MRE complaints. I come from the days of C rations (Meal, Individual Combat Type C). You haven't lived until you have dined on C rations for 30 days straight without any other food. In the older versions there was a meal that was the epitome of awful called Ham and Lima Beans. Now I like both ham and lima beans, but in this case we are talking about fatty greasy smoked shoulder packaged with extra grease and huge tough lima beans. They were know by most Marines by another name that can not be used on a family forum. Later on in my tour in SE Asia I worked in an area under Army controil and they provided our logistical support. Occasionally we received cases of what were called LRRPS for Long Range Reconnasiance Patrol Rations. These were freeze dried meals that were the forerunners of MREs. We thought they were the greatest thing on earth and always looked forward to getting them. Even the poorer meals were great. The bottom line is that if you are hungry enough almost anything is edible.

[Brian Elfert]

The Boy Scouts have a huge event every four years at a National Guard base/camp owned by the state. Dinner the time I went consisted of MRE heaters used to heat up Dinty Moore shelf stable meals. I'm surprised they used the MRE heaters, but not the actual MREs. The heaters worked well, but the Dinty Moore meals were nasty. They would probably have been better if heated in a microwave as intended.

Actual MREs probably would have been better than the Dinty Moore crap.

[ray hampton]

They still produce SPAM? I haven't seen that in years. Some of the items in MRE's were very good, like the dehydrated fruit. Others, like the dehydrated pork patties, would get buried in a huge hole in the desert floor.

I am not sure if Meier or Kroger sell spam but I could buy spam at the best store in this area ,Remke
I reread your post and I think that you are saying that you close your eyes when you eat spam

[harry hood]

Do you know why authentic MREs aren't available? I can't find any plausible explanation online. The ones I've tried weren't bad at all considering the sorts of conditions they designed to survive, about like dinner on a airplane with larger portions.

[ray hampton]

Do you know why authentic MREs aren't available? I can't find any plausible explanation online. The ones I've tried weren't bad at all considering the sorts of conditions they designed to survive, about like dinner on a airplane with larger portions.

I do not remember if I ate MRI or not but the hard tack [crackers]which I did eat are hard enough to eat without breaking into small pieces

[John Pratt]

Do you know why authentic MREs aren't available? I can't find any plausible explanation online. The ones I've tried weren't bad at all considering the sorts of conditions they designed to survive, about like dinner on a airplane with larger portions.

I imagine the biggest reason for the restriction on the sale of "authentic" MREs is the MRE Heater which is considered a hazardous material.

(I don't know why since it is just some magnesium dust with some salt and a little iron dust. The addition of water just creates rust at a quick rate which in turn gives off a lot of heat.)

Another reason could be the opportunity for fraud/misappropriation of Govt materials. As with many things military, the civilian version is slightly different than the item soldiers receive. It definitely makes it easier to determine if the item was acquired through proper means. MRES are closely regulated within the Army (more so now than in years past) to cut down on them "disappearing". At a cost of around $8-$10 per complete packaged meal, it would not take long to add up to some real money. Even if a soldier is issued the meals and does not consume them, they are not allowed to sell them. Are there some out there? Sure. Are you going to find them readily available? Don't count on it.

[Brian Elfert]

I just checked the local Craigslist and found four people selling MREs. One guy was selling by the full case for $65. He had a picture of the case and it has NSN 8970-01-321-9153 on the case. Someone could probably tell us if that is the NSN number for real MREs or not.

[John Shuk]

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/120-serving-grab-amp-go-entree-bucket.aspx?a=1009715

Looks pretty good and they have other choices.

[Montgomery Scott]

I just back from my local army surplus store and they were selling real MRE's for $9/ea. It does say on the front "Commercial resale is unlawful" but the owner said, "it's a gray area". Perhaps it's in the definition of commercial resale.

According to wikipedia the label "Commercial resale is unlawful" is meaningless and there are no laws against reselling them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat