Taste Test: MRE Chicken and Noodles

We’ve been building little food and gear kits for disaster preparedness as well as general unforseen circumstances… and zombies. For example, we made a simple “concert kit” with some groundcloth, a compressible blanket, earplugs, binoculars, flashlight, a tiny first aid kit, and some quickie food (granola and beef jerky). For our home kit I wanted to check out some MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) in the military style. I got one at a surplus store, and I opened it up for lunch.

The one I got was apparently “Menu 16” which is Chicken with Noodles. I found out it’s actually a bona fide military MRE. Technically these can’t be resold to civilians, but hey whatever. There are MREs that are commercially produced and they’re probably even the same components. I stumbled across a review site for MREs, and it’s way more information than necessary.

They’re individually wrapped and are about the size of ummm… the Lord of the Rings box set. Once cracked open and there are a number of tasty parts inside.

Crackers. Two crackers, both perforated for 4 crackers total. Uhhh. They’re salty. (180 cal/6gm fat/0 fiber)

Cheese Spread. Unnatural yellow, squeezeable. Works ok with the crackers; really not anything else. (180/17/0)

Chocolate energy bar. Dense. Power-bar like with some crushed nuts in there, I’m guessing. (240/9/3)

M&M’s. Peanut. Aww yeah. (250/13/2)

Applesauce. OK, kinda runny. Like a double helping of those little Motts’ cups but about 75% as tasty. (130/0/2)

Chocolate drink powder. Zippered pouch that you pour some water in and shake. Surprisingly good, and probably better with warm water. (180/5/1)

Chicken with noodles & vegetables. Star of the show. Good stuff in here. My lower threshold was airplane food, and it ended up more like TV dinner. It wasn’t quite so tasty without it heated up, but it’s very serviceable. It’s got a lot of moisture inside it which helps when heated (more later).

Condiment pack. Comes with an instant coffee (Nescafe), sugar, salt, non-dairy creamer, matches, napkin, moist towelette, chiclet gum, and one of those cute tiny tabasco bottles.

Flameless heater. OK, I said the entree was the star, but this is really the best. It’s a clear bag with a smaller white flat paper packet inside that you’re not supposed to touch. You open the entree and drop it into the heating bag then you add a little water between the entree and the outer bag and the water get soaked up by the packet and starts reacting with the stuff inside. You put the whole thing back into the entree box to hold it and prop it up with the packet on the bottom. There’s a slight smell and smoke and a lot of heat comes out of it. I think it’s a water+magnesium reaction that makes it work. There was probably even enough extra heat for the chocolate drink and the coffee. There’s even an extra bag for heating them.

Overall, it’s 1430 calories, 58 grams of fat, and 10 grams of fiber. Looks like 3 of these is rationed for each serviceperson, normally. In weight-watchers points just one is 33 which is right around my daily allotment, so I could definitely sustain myself with one a day plus water if it somehow came to that. For a self-contained kit it’s very well set up, and there’s at least 16 entree choices, so it may not get tiresome over a short term, anyway. With the heater, it definitely makes it an excellent package, as the morale from a warm meal is not to be overstated. With access to electricity and gas real food would probably be tastier, and some of the “camping foods” are probably comparable, but I like this for the self-contained nature, and a couple of these in the car kit should work out well.