(intense music) - Greetings my beautiful lovelies. It's Emmy. How are you? It's great to see you and welcome back to another international
ration taste test. If you've missed my
previous ration taste tests, international and
domestic, I will direct you to the link below where I've tasted many, many, many rations. But today I'm gonna be tasting
another international one. It is this gigantic
one. Based on its size, I'm guessing this is a 24-hour ration and this is an arctic Dutch ration. Arctic meaning this food
has been freeze-dried: we need to add some hot water
to it to reconstitute things. And because it's made for cold weather the ration itself contains more calories. Alrighty, let's go ahead and
see what's inside this one. This is the ration, and
it is code number 12. And this is the chicken masala with rice. All right, beef with mashed potatoes. Both of those sound delicious. One of my favorite parts of these rations, of course, besides tasting them, is unboxing them to see
what is considered important to put in a field ration. So we open this and take everything out. Ah, so this is a theme. We have another resealable plastic bag -- great, again, so we can reuse it. So this looks like it might
be snacks and sundries. Oh my gosh, so many things in here. Peanuts, peanut butter, jelly
beans, antibacterial wipes. Oh, this is cool. I've never seen this before: this is a vitamin D3 tablet. We have a spoon -- a very
rigid, good quality spoon; fruit biscuits; dark chocolate
bar; packet of tissues. We have three packets of biscuits, chewing gum, cereal bar, apricot jam. Looks like another chewing gum. So two pieces of gum. Looks like one is spearmint
and one is peppermint. Oh, this is cool: toothpicks wrapped up. And what is this? Hazelnut spread with chocolate flavor. So this looks like a
Nutella kind of packet. My gosh, already so many things to try. And these are just the snacks. Oh, look, the toothpicks
actually are clear on one side. I didn't notice that. So you can see the actual stick in there. Okay, great. So we've got some dental hygiene as well. So that was just the
accessories pack, snacks. I don't see a ration heater so far but we still have a lot more to unbox. Next, we have another little bag here. And this looks like it
has more snacks in it. Cashew nuts, dried cranberries. This is a drink. This is iced tea powder. More snacks, digestive biscuits. And this is the last
kind of bundled package. So here we have another
drink, instant cocoa powder. Look at that, that's beefy. Two packets of soup. We have beef soup and tomato. Ooh, this is fun. Spicy sauce. They don't call it hot sauce. It's called spicy sauce. Couple tubes of instant
coffee, four tubes of sugar, pepper, salt, another iced tea
powder, one coffee creamer, another coffee. So three coffees total. And then we've got a selection of teas. Oh, very nice. We have lemon tea, green tea, and just a plain breakfast black tea. Very nice. Super comprehensive. Oh my gosh, I don't even
know where to put everything. All right, distributed all of that. Now let's get to the
main dishes themselves. Okay. Okay. So now for the remaining ration. We have chicken masala with
rice in a very compact bag. Everything is dry. There we go. Whoa, this one is not dry. This is rice pudding with vanilla. Very squishy. This one is fruit muesli
with raspberries and oatmeal. Right there, breakfast. And this is mashed potatoes
with beef dry packet as well. Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. Look at all these. Look at this. So this is a whey powder
drink, like a protein drink. I've never seen that before in a ration. So this is an orange electrolyte drink; another electrolyte
drink, an EXOTIC flavor. Oh, this one's gonna be good. This is another isotonic
drink in grapefruit flavor. Apple flavor in this red one. And the last one is this,
and this is the cinnamon bun. All righty, let me sort this all out and then we're gonna
give everything a taste. Alrighty, my lovelies. I have to say, right off the bat, before I've even tasted anything yet, this is one of the most
comprehensive MREs I've ever tasted. So many things packed into this ration. And this is, I mean, goodness. So loosely, this is
going to be my breakfast. So the first thing I'm going
to taste is the Orifo brand Voyager fruit muesli with
raspberries, right here. So we'll open this up. So this one has a very
pink, powdery look to it. It smells like raspberries,
but not artificial. It smells like freeze-dried raspberries. So the line is right where my finger is and I'm just gonna pour
hot water to that line and get everything boiling or get everything wet, I should say. Bloop. I'm gonna give it a little bit of a stir to make sure I get stuff in the corner. I'm gonna close that up. And we're supposed to let
this sit for five minutes and there is our meal. Okay, let that sit. Oh, I forgot to wash my hands. Gotta do that. My little antibacterial wipe. Oh, very typical. This thin paper. And then let's make tea
with lemon flavoring. So, just a tea bag here. Let that sit. And then we will make a
cup of coffee as well. And this is instant coffee. So this is coffee granules. See the bottom there. Now, this is nothing fancy. I happen to love this type of coffee because it reminds me of camping. It's no frills, it's
hot, but it does the job. Okay, is there anything
else we need to reconstitute with hot water for this one? No. Okay, so I think we're good for hot water and let's try the other things. Oh, we should make our isotonic beverage. This says add 250 milliliters of water and this does not have a water line. So I suppose you're supposed
to just know what 250, maybe your canteen size
is 250 milliliters. So add that to here. All right, so now what
we're supposed to do is fold this over as
instructed and shake it. See, it gives you instructions to mix. All right, let's see if
this is an effective means of mixing the powder to the water. Yeah. Oh, no, I still have some
powder in the corners. I dunno if you can see that. Yeah, see, let's give that a taste. Cheers. Hey, that's pretty good. It's like orange Tang, almost exactly, that artificial orange flavor. Nice bit of acidity. But what I really like is that it has that kind of Gatorade texture to it. It doesn't burn your throat. You know what I mean? I like it. Got my electrolytes in. Next, let's open up our cereal bar. It says caramel flavor. Okay. The cereal bar looks very
much like a granola bar. Here we go. Hmm. I like that. It's very reminiscent of the soft kind of chewy granola bars
you can find stateside, a very strong caramel flavor, a little bit like brown sugar but it's got some oatmeal grains in it but it also has some puffed rice cereal so there's a nice crunch to it even though it's pretty
dense and caramelized. It's a nice little crunch. Great little portable, handy, sweet snack. Ooh, let's wash that down
with some instant coffee. That's good. It's kind of like what I
imagine hot Kahlua would be like without the alcohol. It's like a coffee essence
that's hot and slightly burned. I love it. Oh, okay. With that, let's have a biscuit. Wow. I wasn't expecting it to
be square for some reason. Let's see the snap. Whole grain. Oh, so I don't think this is sweet. Let's give this a taste. No, very dry and crumbly biscuit,
but it's not sweet at all. In fact, it's more like
a cracker in its flavor. Very coarse and crumbly,
but not really crisp. Definitely could go
either savory or sweet. I could see myself dipping
this in some kind of sauce or spreading some apricot jam on it. Let's try that. Okay, let's squeeze
some of that onto here. Oh, yeah. Looks like apricot jam that
I'm dripping into my tea. Okay, here we go. (Emmy chewing) Hmm. I find I don't have apricot jam ever although it's delicious. It's kind of got a peachy
flavor to it, sweet, and it goes really nicely
on this cracker or biscuit. Hmm. Let's try it with our tea. This is our black tea infused with lemon. Hmm. That's a good combination: this cracker, apricot
jam, lemon tea -- yo! Warm, hot beverage, just
lightly scented with lemon. I don't usually put lemon
in my tea, but I like it. Wow. So far this ration has
been very impressive. Very well-considered, and
everything is pretty tasty. Alrighty. Now let's taste our muesli
that's been sitting here. So after five minutes of sitting in there everything has reconstituted,
and I'm gonna use my spoon to show you what it looks like. That looks like the right
consistency of oatmeal. You could certainly add more water if you wanted it a little soupier. The corners are actually rounded, so nothing has gotten
stuck in terms of powder in the corners because
there aren't any corners, so there aren't any corners. It just get cuts off right here, so the food can't get trapped in there. That, see there, you can see it. It's sealed like a round mould. All right, let's give this a taste. Here we go. (Emmy chewing) I like it. It definitely has some substance
to it and some texture. Some toothiness. There's nice dried pieces of apple that have reconstituted nicely. It gives it a little bit of crunch. Big grains of oat. There's a nice raspberry flavor in there that doesn't taste like
artificial raspberry. Tastes like freeze-dried raspberry. Great. And there's some dairy in there too. A little bit of milk powder that makes everything taste richer. Creamier. Little bit of sugar, not too sweet. Great. Breakfast winner. Alrighty, let's have lunch. Alrighty, next tray, we have lunch. And the first thing I'm going
to do is make the entree which is the chicken masala with rice. Ooh, right on top, you can see
some big chunks of chicken. Pinch and add the water. Oh, this one smells good. Give that a stir and seal that one up for six to eight minutes. Oh my gosh. We have four drinks. We have a soup too. Oh boy, I'm gonna have to make some extra. Okay, let's make our soup. Okay. Green tea. Just a tea bag. And we'll add some hot water to that. All right, let that steep. And then here we have instant
cocoa beverage powder, big fat tube. Ooh, this looks like a
little bit darker chocolate than what we find here in the US. This is sort of standard-issue hot cocoa. Stir that up. Oh yes. Look, that's nice and dark color. It's more of a dark chocolate
than a milk chocolate. Shashasha. I cannot resist. Cheers. (Emmy sipping) Yeah. Tastes like winter. Right here, childhood in a cup. But where are the marshmallows? Okay, while the other stuff's cooking we can taste the snacks. Dried cranberries. Those look very familiar. Like craisins you can find here stateside, dried cranberries. Cranberries themselves are quite sour. So I imagine these are
gonna contain some sugar. Craisins. Delicious. And these definitely
have some sugar in them. They have a texture kind
of similar to raisins, but not as sticky. A little bit crystalline but I think that's due to
the added sugar to them. But sweet and tangy. And full of cranberry flavor. Great snack. Love it. Dried cranberries. Next, we have roasted unsalted peanuts. It's kind of difficult
to see the packaging. Wow, look at that. Very generous-sized peanuts. Let's pour them out. Really big-sized peanuts. Roasted and unsalted. Well, I like 'em though. I like peanuts salted. Mmm. (Emmy chewing) Peanuts are such a great snack. These are beautifully roasted, fresh, they don't taste rancid. They kind of remind me of
blistered peanuts a little bit in terms of their texture. They've got kind of a firm bite to them. Impressive ration. Wow. So we have another kind of cookie thing. Biscuits. This is a fruit biscuit or biscuit fruit. So this is similar to the wheat biscuits in how they look, kind of dried. Looks very much whole grain. And this has a little bit of fruit in it. Let's give that a go. Hmm. (Emmy chewing) Oh yeah, it says fruit, but to me, I taste more cinnamon. Love the crunch. (Emmy chewing) Kind of reminds me of a graham cracker. A little bit denser than a graham cracker. Same level of sweetness though. And familiar kind of crunch. Little bit different, but delicious. Okay, let's put this on a cracker. Oh yeah, peanut butter. See that? Here we go. (Emmy chewing) Again, another childhood flavor. Peanut butter and something
that's like a graham cracker. But let's kill this literally
by adding chocolate. You know what I'm gonna do here, right? Oh, yes. I'm eating my dessert
before I'm eating my meal. So this is not mold or
anything, this is just blooming. This is what happens when
the chocolate gets too hot and then it re-solidifies and
then crystallizes like that. And we're gonna have that chocolate with a little bit of peanut butter. Yeah, like that. (Emmy chewing) What's there to say? It's so delicious. Any chocolate with peanut
butter such a great combination. Let's have that with some green tea. (Emmy sipping) Huh. Not bad. Now, what else do we taste? Oh. I blame the gusseted bag,
the non-gusseted bag. Or maybe I just wasn't
holding onto it well enough. Okay. It's all good, right? It's all good. Adding our water. We're gonna pull this
over and give it a shake. There's not a lot of room
to shake, I have to say. Ooh, this one's a yellow color. All right, cheers. Hey, that's pretty good too. Like it. Like it. I would drink that again. Let us taste the main dish,
which should be cooked by now. The chicken masala with rice. That's what it looks like. It looks great. Moistens up nicely. It doesn't look mushy. There is a big chunk of chicken. Alrighty, here we go. Hmm. (Emmy chewing) Pretty good. The rice is tender and fluffy, not mushy. There's some vegetables in
there, I think some red pepper. It's not very spicy. It tastes more of like a
curry kind of gingery flavors. It could use a little
bit more salt, I think. The chicken kind of
has an unusual texture. It's a little bit dry and the
middles a little bit firm. Maybe I could have cooked
it longer, but not bad. Here we go. Let's try that. I'm just gonna put it all in. Let's see if that improves things. There you go. Hmm. (Emmy clears throat) Very vinegary. Ooh, salty. Oh yeah. That improves things tremendously. Lots of salt, vinegar. Not that much heat, but more flavor. Oh, yeah. All right. Let's try the rice
pudding with vanilla next. This is a monster serving. Whoa! That, I have to say, does
not look appetizing at all. Yeah. See. Here we go. (Emmy chewing) Hmm. Very, very, very, very vanillaed, but the flavors are good: dairied, rich, and dessert-like. This is sweetened as well. Almost forgot to make the tomato soup. Doodoo. Oh, cute. This, I think has a little pasta in it. Sweet. And look at that. We have tomato soup. I'm gonna give that a stir. And then I also forgot to
make this protein drink, the WHEY 100. Okay, it's at 250 milliliters. It's almost like milk or something. It smells very vanilly,
like a vanilla shake. It's a little bit thicker. All right, cheers. (Emmy sipping) No, yeah. In terms of flavor, this
one's not my favorite but this is WHEY 100 and it's 74% protein. So for an active soldier
protein is pretty important. Ah, yes, indeed. No sugar added. Our soup has had some time
to sit around and thicken up. Look at that. Thickens up beautifully. Let's give that a taste. (Emmy chewing) Those are croutons and they're crunchy. How do they stay crunchy when
they've been soaked in water? Wow. Nice little hot snack. Tomato soup with crunchy croutons. Never in my life. Amazing. Ooh, let's wash that off with
a piece of spearmint gum. I wonder if this is xylitol gum. Oh, yes, it is xylitol gum. Hmm. So xylitol is a type of sweetener that doesn't allow bacteria
to bind to your teeth. So this is great for
dental hygiene as well. The outside of the gum is crunchy and the inside softens
up to nice piece of gum. Alrighty. Nice way to polish off lunch. Next, dinner. Gosh, I'm already okay. I'm not stuffed, but I'm getting there. So for the main of the dinner meal we're going to have
mashed potatoes with beef. Ooh, look at that. And I'm gonna give this a stir to make sure everything
gets some moisture to it. There we go. This too needs to sit
for six to eight minutes. In the meanwhile, let us try some nuts. Cashews. Love these. These are my mom's favorite. (Emmy chewing) Delicious. Love cashews. Okay, jelly beans. Do you think these are gonna
be like Jelly Belly beans like the gourmet jelly beans? No, they're kind of not. These are Dutch jelly beans. They're kind of a hybrid
between the gourmet little small Jelly Belly
beans that we can find here in the US and the big giant
ones that we get at Easter time. All right, here we go. (Emmy chewing) Hmm. In terms of texture,
exactly the same as the US. A little bit jelly and
sticky in the inside, kind of crystalline and
crumbly texture on the outside. That was like a mysterious
tropically-fruit flavor. Is yellow gonna be lemon? I hope it will. Hmm. That tastes just like a lemon jelly bean. It was great. We have two isotonic drinks. We have apple and grapefruit. Oh, I'm gonna make a cup of tea as well. Gonna make an English breakfast tea. Mmm. I love black tea. So good. All right, while these
are doing their thing. Let us make our electrolyte drinks. This is one that I'm most excited about. This is grapefruit. Love grapefruit. Now put it down like
this so I don't drop it. Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. Bloop. Ooh, this one's kind of got
like a white color to it. Cheers. Oh, yes. This one tastes like Squirt. Have you ever had that soda, Squirt. That's what this tastes like. Squirt, nice and tangy. Grapefruit flavor. That's kind of artificial,
but just lovely. I love it so much. And same level of sweetness but it has a little bit
of bitterness to it. Just a tiny bit. Apple. Another flavor that I do not associate at least here in the
US with sports drinks. Yeah, and I also like that
there's not a lot of dyes in these as well. Yep. Not any alarming color. All right. Cheers. (Emmy sipping) Hey, like that one too. (Emmy chewing) Great viscosity of electrolyte drink. A little bit thick, but
not significantly thick. Just a little bit of substance. Like that. A little bit more like cider. Not even like clear apple juice. Not like that. I mean like cider. Pretty good. I like it. This is beef bouillon, so I think it's just gonna
be like a beef broth. Yeah. Oh, and I think there's
little bits of beef in there. Tiny little bits. This is kind of worrisome to me though, the size of these beef pieces. See them floating there. That little piece of beef right there. Can you see that? They kind of look like mouse droppings if you want my opinion, right? All right, let's give this a taste. (Emmy sipping) Hmm. Very, very salty. Need to add some more water to that. And those little pieces of beef I think need to hydrate
a little bit longer because a little bit crunchy right now. Okay, let's try our tea. (Emmy sipping) Nothing surprising there. Just a nice cup of black tea. Let's try that with a biscuit. So we've got a packet
of digestive biscuits. So here's a digestive biscuit and there are five of them inside. (Emmy chewing) Just a lightly sweetened, and again, reminiscent of graham crackers. A little drier and a
little bit coarser texture but similar flavor and
similar level of sweetness. But what I think will make
this a million times better is this, a little bit of
hazelnut chocolate spread i.e. Nutella. Oh yes. The best snack. Here we go. (Emmy chewing) (Emmy sipping) So good. Nutella it is a bit sweet for
me, but on a digestive biscuit that doesn't have much sweetness to it. Sort of the perfect
little delivery mechanism. A little bit of crunch, milky, sweet, hazelnutty, chocolateness, hot tea. (Emmy sipping) Great. Let's try this one. This is a Bridgford cinnamon bun. This does not look like a cinnamon bun. I've said this before and
once again, I'll say it again. If we cut it in half though,
we will see a cross-section of the cinnamon inside. In a US ration, you could put this in your flameless ration
heater and get it warmed up. It is a little bit better that way but in my experience,
these are pretty dense. Let's see if anything's changed. (Emmy chewing) They are still pretty
dense, but bread-like, very strong cinnamony punch to
them, not really my favorite. They're not really buttery
or rich in that way. They are just dense. But it's the texture and just
general appearance of them that don't look all that
welcoming, friendly, delightful, or appealing. On that note, let us try our main, our mashed potatoes and beef. Wow, these mashed potatoes
are impressively mashed. Look at this Look at that. Now let's give this a taste. Here we go. Itadakimas. Nah. This one too is kind of light. It's not too salty. In fact, I think it needs more salt. The potatoes are very soft and creamy, but for me, they're
missing a little richness. Some buttery, that buttery flavor and the beef as opposed to
the chicken has hydrated well. There are no hard parts. The beef pieces are much smaller. I think it needs some gravy
or something with it too. In terms of meat portions,
I find some of the canned or tinned meat stews to be tastier. The meats that I've really
enjoyed in previous rations in terms of international
rations are the rations that include the meats or stews in tins. Those ones tend to be very, very meaty. Super, super hardy, and delicious. All righty, my lovelies, my
gut is officially busted. I just tasted the arctic
Dutch 24-hour ration and it was huge, comprehensive,
and pretty tasty. I think this is probably one of the most comprehensive rations I've ever tasted in terms of sheer volume
and variety of items that were included in this,
all around pretty tasty. The meals themselves, the rehydrated meals were in the middle for me
in terms of deliciousness but in terms of design, right up there, design was just very, very,
very thoroughly well designed in terms of packaging, waterline,
usage, standup quality, all that stuff I think was
really, really well-engineered. And I really appreciate the variety that is included in here. I think I would imagine
being a soldier day-to-day eating these same rations
every day would be maddening and being able to have some
variety is really important and be able to mix and match how you wish. Having some autonomy, I think,
is a really great thing. Alrighty, my lovelies,
thanks so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed that one. I hope you learned something. Please share this video with your friends. Check out the ration
playlist to learn more about international and domestic rations; like this video; subscribe; and I shall see you in the next one. Toodaloo, take care, Byeee!! (violin music) Ah, alrighty, now it's time
to take a little break.
