Right now more people than ever before,
and I'm talking citizens, are out there
buying MREs. Now what are MREs?
MRE stands for Meal Ready to Eat, and this is the
standard field ration for the United
States military. Now folks are out there
and they're stocking up on MREs, just in
case for disaster preparedness, but do
you actually know what you have and have
you ever actually eaten one? Well today
we're going to dig into an MRE and see
exactly what's inside. Now you don't have
to have a knife but it does help, let's
cut into this and see what we've got. In
a survival situation you want to keep a
hold of all the gear you have. Now this
outer bag is actually waterproof, you can
save it, use it as a rain resistant or
water resistant cover or as an emergency
container to get water. Now the bulk meal
is inside yet another sealed up wrap, you
can just tear into that and let's see
what we've got. All right, first things
first, we've got our main meal. Mmm, beef
stew. Now in order to get into the beef
stew, you actually have to open up the
cardboard pouch and pull it out. Now
there we are. Now stop yourself, I know
you're hungry, but if you'd like a warm
meal, set this aside. We have a super
high-speed, handy-dandy MRE heater.
Now how do you heat an MRE in the field?
Well you don't need fire, all you need
actually is some water. So what I'm going
to do is I'm going to tear the top
across just like so, I'll open this guy
up right here, I'm going to slide my main
meal down in here. You don't want to eat
the material that is in the MRE heater,
just so you know. Alright once you've
slid it down inside, you're going to need
a little bit of water and when I say a
little bit, only an ounce or two. See the
fill line at the bottom?
Fill it up to the fill line. Now this
isn't a microwave, it's not instantaneous,
it's going to take a little while. So
what I'll do is I'll fold the top over
like so, and then I'm going to take this
and I'm going to, remember I told you to
save the sleeve, stick it right back in
that cardboard sleeve and I'm going to
prop it up like so because i have my
nice little stone table right here. Now
while that's heating, let me dig into the
bag and see what other goodies I have.
I've got my hot beverage bag, if i want
to make hot cocoa, pour the water, shake
it up and use again use the MRE heater.
We've got our spoon we always want to
hang on to our spoon so we can actually
eat it. Aha, MRE peanut butter, good for
lots of things. We have a chocolate
sports bar with chocolate coating, mmm
yummy, save that for later. What do we
have here? Aha, we have the strawberry
dairy shake powder. Now let me give you a
clue if you're going to drink the shake,
don't do it in July, right before you go
on a forced march. That's a little hint
from your Uncle Paul. All the little
things that you need to make your meal
complete, got matches just in case, we've
got some tasters choice instant coffee
and of course we have creamer to go with
it, we've got probably one of the
smartest things that they ever put into
an MRE, a little mini Tabasco sauce. We've
got sugar, we have a little moist
towelette, now that we can use that to
clean up our hands or we can save it for
another occasion and clean up other
parts of our body with that. We've got
some iodized salt, if you're out in the
field and you're sweating a lot, you want
to make sure that you keep up your salt
intake and then we have our MRE toilet
paper. That's right, if you're out in the
field, this is what you've got to use
hence the reason we might want to save
our moist towelette.
Okay our main meal's been cooking for
about 10 minutes now, it should be nice
and warm. Before you cut it open, knead it
so it gets warm all the way through. All
right now here's a little hint from your
uncle Paul, when you cut open your main
meal, cut it open horizontally not
vertically that makes more of a bowl to
mix your dinner in. I've got my knife,
just gonna cut it open, there you go.
Set that aside, now you see what I have,
I've got myself a little bit of a bowl
right here. Take my crackers, now I pre-crunched
these prepare them off camera
just like any good cooking show does.
Dump some of those in there, I got my
Tabasco sauce, I like a little heat with
my food, go ahead and dump that in there
mix it all up and we're ready to eat.
< Click the Thumbnail to the Left for a FREE Gift
