Trying an MRE for the First Time!

welcome back everybody this is Eric and Chad here with Iraq veteran 8888 today Chad who is an MRE virgin is going to try an MRE and we're gonna break one of these open and in case you guys don't know what MRE is meals meal ready to eat and it's a common military ration and the way the military issues them is in two different cases of case a and in case B with menus one through twelve and then 13 through 24 okay there's 24 menu selections that the military offers now this MRE comes from MRE nation recently we sent out our survival man can and we had to Emory's in there from them and of course they have our snazzy branding on them so you know there was blood shameless plug but anyway we you know we thought that we would break one of these open Chad's never had a MRE so we thought we'd take him through this and we'll explain some of the things that are going on with an Emory now they use a flameless heater okay which is really great out in the field you know if you're a soldier you can't make them fires you don't want the enemy seeing you're right so the whole flameless ration heater comes from the need to have noise and light discipline the meal is typically around 2,000 to 2,200 calories per meal it's made for a soldier in combat who's you know exercising a lot of you know physical and mental strain from being in the field right you're sweating a lot these meals are typically high in carbohydrates they're high in fat they're high in salt content and lots of lots of starch and and carbs right high carbs definitely not key though right absolutely not keto but you know this is the menu selection number three which is the beef stew mmm so go ahead and open her up okay just had it open I was asking her this morning am i do I need to bring like a little camp stove or something to fire this thing up and no you have no idea what you're talking about there you go cut it open hate to pay now they can be resealed but we're just gonna cut it open and this is a Swedish Mora that one of our viewers from Sweden sent us this is a military-issue Morris that tirelessly all right so you've got your snack bread separate okay and it's it's bread all right we got a jalapeno cheese press oh this is kind of cool okay so that's the beeps - yeah accessory kit accessory kit okay there's a dual oatmeal cookies hey you didn't say anything about all this extra stuff yeah if you get all kind of thing look at this you got a a lemon drink mix that you can add to your water here pink lemon power stick beverage okay let your life so here's another thing all right about Emory's that you're gonna find to be really cool is all the descriptions are super generic all right now this one comes from Emory nation but the ones that the military issues they can't call it in the news they have to call it candy covered you know chocolate discs it's like a super generic name like they can't use you know name brands okay okay there's the heater there's a heater so I got some peanut butter Vanessa mean grape jelly you got jelly peanut butter and jalapeno spread well you have crackers well there was a what was this right here that's bread okay so that's wheats okay so revelry for your for your bread selection teeth are gonna be like a weed or white bread which is like a little compressed disk of bread and or it'll be crackers and the crackers come in like this big square they're not pre-broken you have to like break them into little squares okay I don't have to practice to show now what's this here SCM creamer spread coffee Oh Gary that's two all says milk and sugar okay so I find out okay so interesting what you want to do let's explain the heater okay so a lot of people get confused about these heaters if you look in here okay so when when metal oxidizes it gives off heat okay as a by-product now when that metal oxidizes usually it happens over a long period of time right like you get your metal wet and it takes a long time and it converts into red oxide right that's what we know is rust that process gives off heat what they did with this is they use magnesium flake iron flake and salt and when it comes in contact with water it oxidizes so rapidly that it boils the water inside the heater and creates heat as a by-product product and hydrogen gas as a by-product the hydrogen gas is flammable so don't don't do don't get it near a fire okay wail all right so the way that you work this thing is to tear the top off right here okay okay there's also look there's tore Tillis you have tore Tillis so that's the making such great jelly tore Tillis and Sahana burger and this is your hot beverage bag okay which I would assume when you're done with the water you can pour water in there tear to use bag so just rip this all right yeah so yep just rip it off nice clean tear where you got a nice no money to use a knife is our earrings now one thing I'm gonna go ahead and just kind of pre do here all right you'll notice the peanut butter now this one actually feels like kind of soft in here but both your cheese spreads and your peanut butter the jelly is not a problem you want to need the package nee this is the finish oh okay I want to do this massage the peanut they have to massage the package so go massage the cheese and you're massaging the peanut butter massage it massage massage massage okay so now since you don't want to be eating some some cold beef stew right we need to go ahead and start getting our beef stew cooking while we break into the tortillas and the bread so I always start out with the entree first so go ahead and what you want to do now normally there's like a little box that these come in and this particular case there isn't a box and that's fine we can take this package here and just sort of you know make ourselves a little a little hill here right here we can make put our cookies since cookies last I'm gonna use our cookie is kind of like a little bit like a little bit of platinum ache a little platform okay now go ahead and insert the beefs do inside of the computer so you just leave all this in here and just put the beef stew package in it I do okay now well there's a few different ways you can do it now the military ones come with like a little brown cardboard box and you can take the brown Clark cardboard box and just put the heater down inside it with the meal on top but you can also put the meal inside of it as well I'm gonna hurt you either way let's see well it says while holding Emery pouch tastes mostly place amore pouch in bag with the heater okay put it in there and I would let's see on the front reverberated edge to the top perforated edge to the top alright yeah go ahead just put in there like that that's fine is that correct that's fine sometimes it's like a little zip tie right so sometimes there's a little cut along Mitaka so these are a little bit different than the military ation alright alright go ahead put it in there now does it matter if it's on the front of the heater or the back of the heat yes right it doesn't all right so that goes in there okay right pour the water in pour the water in yes until it fills up to the line no line which long right do not overfill see the line know that it does right yeah it doesn't take much oh wow it doesn't take much all right we're gonna add add a little bit of water here I look ugly to bigger right through oh you overfilled it Oh that'd be right yeah you can pour a little bit out not a big deal we're just a tiny amount out sorry it ain't rocket science guys okay so now what's gonna happen is let's go go ahead and throw these sort of oh yeah it's going to now you're gonna see a little bit of steam coming out from the water as it starts to boil and this is this is hydrogen gas okay okay so Kylie flame yeah don't don't breathe pull the Emory pouts and heater above the lines on the bag pour water in the bank futures lies about so you can smell it it's harmless in terms of you know what I do we want to fold this and put it back in this big bag you can if you want yeah let's do that oh that so the military ones come with like a little cardboard box to put it back into but in this case they're just saying put it back in the back that's fine put it back in the bag and keep that kind of clothes get keep that kind of closed and look just want to keep it elevated just a little bit more if we can not like that but look just so I don't like this like a slight elevation okay right and that's that's getting warm okay so what's happening is that water is reacting with the magnesium / salt / iron concoction and it's wrap rapidly oxidizing and is boiling the water and it's giving off steam and hydrogen and heat as a by-product that's me and it requires no flame okay so while your beef stew is cooking now we can look at a couple other things here so you got your peanut butter you got your grape jelly jalapeno cheese spread that's really cool to have all three of those in one meal all right so we could even take your beverage here so just drink you got water in there I have agua there you go I have fun h2o let's go ahead and make your beverage and again each of these packages you want to kind of like need a little bit so electrolyze system or like a Powerade or gaze idatr air it's like Gatorade but they can't call it that look at that hmm lots of sugar sugary driver behind written carbohydrates and electrolytes okay all right there's your sports drink generic generic straight straight okay so you got you got your meal going got your got your uh your beverage alright and now let's see they one package equals one wedge of lemon or lime crystallized lime and crystallized lemon so if you want not only do you have your sports drink if you got some you know in the field of course soldiers have really crappy water you can add you a little bit of lime or lemon just to make the water a little bit easier to drink that's not terrible actually okay so what do you think what's the verdict on the drink not bad I mean it tastes like a Gatorade yeah mm-hmm like it yeah okay not terrible okay is there gonna be something that I don't like let's let's look at what what we have for bread and tortillas okay so you got cheese grape jelly peanut butter I think that's all self-explanatory we've already needed the package once go ahead and break open the bread and the tortillas okay so I mean with this this thing all right so it's one MRE but technically it's it's kind of like several little meals for like four a day like you would have one and Mauri per day is that the idea oh no you know you can eat an MRE for every meal I mean there's plenty of plenty of stuff to choose from and they do have like some breakfast specific items at the military it's kind of like a cross between a pop-tart and like unleavened bread I guess that's kind of interesting all right so we'll see I don't make this bread better put some peanut butter some Greg jelly I'll do whatever you want all right why don't you see what your tortillas are about so you know what your options are what's just signal all right let's see I'm so so much a noob at this man Portillo's all right now let me tell you something about these ration heaters as well what a lot of memory got cookies for him so what a lot of our what a lot of our soldiers do in the field with the flameless ration heaters is sometimes if it's cold like I remember a lot of winners at Fort Stewart when it's really really cold when you're done cooking your MRE you can take your flameless ration heater and you can stick it under your sleeping bag under your sleeping bag and use it as a little bit of a yeah foot warmer okay and I I can't tell you how many times we've taken the MRE packs after we're done with the heater and put them down inside our uniforms help keep warming us up when it's when it's cold I'm gonna go ahead and open your accessory packet and Lissa's this is gonna as if this couldn't get better right you have options you have accessories all right so let's pop this up while you're popping that oh I'm gonna try a little bit of this PB&J that tortilla looks pretty good I'm just gonna support me out a teeny little bit there look what you got here sugar we got here Oh coffee all right so this I'm assuming would go with your creamer spread I guess if you want to make yourself some coffee you've got sugar so UNEP coffee boy he's got a wet wipe here so you can wipe your nasty hands honor it clear you've got a little tiny desert there look you have some Smarties yeah but it's a toilet paper toilet paper well you know this all stuff's got to come out right so you know if you put it in it's good you got some solver driller you've got some clothing mer oh and you got some salt and pepper and you've got the spoon all right a tiny sample with PB&J all right go hmm tortillas pretty dang good actually is it yep peanut butter is not bad try the bread hmm all right let's try this a tiny piece of bread real quick now put some peanut butter and jelly on that folded up man I don't have to eat for the rest of the day well what you really don't realize is that MRE means meal refusing to exit not good I didn't warn you but all right look the bridge not bad okay how do you nut butter peanut butter coupe tastes like peanut butter actually no hmm yeah it's not quite like Peter Pan I'm a Peter Pan man but more like jiff hey let's see now don't get too too too funky on the on the sweets now no because you still got some of that jalapeno cheese spread yeah I'm just taking like a tiny little bit here yeah I'm just making me a little sample just a tiny little sample like that just a little corner mmm good yeah I'm just you're Bob although you say that it's actually not buddy you've had about your 50 of them are you all right okay not terrible not terrible terrible okay so that the menu options are very similar to what you know the military issues I'll say this is definitely on par if not maybe even a little bit more more better more better more better it might be better or better than with military issues remember we still have dessert cookies you still got beef dude I'm just sampling all right so the pretty much with an MRE the main item that you're gonna heat up is gonna be the entree and it's normally and it'll be anything from chicken and noodle - chicken cavatelli beef stews and like round Alaia ravioli I know and I'm just talking about with military issues now MRE nation has a lot of different options for what you can actually build your own MRE which is cool so let's say that you wanted to order you know a couple of cases of MREs from Emory nation and you know there's certain menus that you like a heck of a lot you can actually custom tailor your own them or which is really cool the military doesn't give you that option they just kick a case off the back of the truck and you're just gonna deal with it alright now that's pretty good I know we used to fight each other over the skittles and the in the news the John look covered no the nd covered chocolate discs yes yes super generic Super Junior I'm gonna tell you what this cheese spreads freakin good there's quite tasty not bad is it it's not terrible I thought I was gonna eat this and be like oh god it could be worse get me out here could be worse you said the hamburgers not very good huh not my favorite if you can call it a hamburger I'm feeling we're talking about the military ones now you know that it really today but I'm feeling really fool just off this you still got beef stew too even though this is where the rubbers gonna meet the road is when you start getting meat and me alright so another thing about Emory that's really good another thing about Emory's that people need to know is that they're generally intended for long-term storage so they're designed to be stored you know if they're kept cool and dry and in a you know non humid environment they can keep for several years okay so that's one of the benefits of military rations is that they do have a long shelf life Anna you know military rations having a really long shelf life is not necessarily a new thing recently there was some new old stock a rations found from the Korean War okay we're talking back in the 50s and there was I actually saw an instance where someone found some new old stock World War 2 K rations as well at really old rations and they were still good now the K R a cigarette we're still gonna used to issue cigarettes and rations were those um the K rations were in like a tin can weren't they like canned right had like a little peel top on in this room yeah but there what there was a video that I found on YouTube of somebody opening up an original K ration and no much of this stuff was still what appeared to be edible no botulism beef stick all right so what I do just pull it out here cold out don't get burnt it's hot okay it's warm look yeah oh yeah it's hot Tuesday yeah look at that all right okay you just pull the entre out without burning your fingertips oh yeah it's hot yeah careful careful careful oh yeah fire hazard is a fire hazard okay got your spoon okay and you got your knife somewhere right here now how would you just normally open this in the fuel all right now now there's a couple of different there's a couple of different schools of thought on this and I see the little tab right here drying everything right there's a few different schools of thought some people like to tear them across the top and then you because uh the spoons pretty long but well I like to squeeze it down like this and cut across the top I find it be easier to get out yeah it makes a lot less of a mess okay so we're just gonna open you can rip it or you can cut it look at that look at that just like that okay there you go there's your beeps dude man it might be hot wow this smells pretty good there you go all right all right now there's a couple of things here I'm noticing that is omitted okay our accessory packet didn't have any hot sauce okay the military rations will come with some hot sauce sometimes well usually will come with like a little tiny vial of hot sauce like Tabasco Tabasco sauce nice huh you've got coffee and yeah let's see the coffee because no I'm talking about so with the coffee can you uh can you put like another packet or something in here and boil water in this bag with the heating yes so that's what this is for okay so your hot beverage bag you can add your you would add your coffee and go ahead and boiled your you're calling your heat your coffee in this little bag so is this well if we put water in there and the coffee would that still heat in this bag yes so how long do these things last pretty good what real pretty good well long enough for you to handle your meal mean all right so go ahead all right so the beef stew it's not terrible now that huh not bad yeah I don't know if it's like Castle berries or denting more but you know it's miss Etta belitz it's good it's not bad okay yeah I can stock up on these good you know all right you've got some salt and pepper if you need it you've got a wet one you got TP for later oh yeah very huh ma'am hmm now just need some coffee to go with my oatmeal dessert there you can do that all right so see ooh how about filled with water to the appropriate fill line mmm remove air from bag and secure closure and hmm instant coffee this is really not by empty context into cup and Heat all right salute guys I don't really drink coffee but I'm gonna try to make some coffee we're gonna we're gonna do our best here I'm telling you this is really really hot white I'm very impressed with how hot that thing gets means born at war no it's cool Imre good Arjun our coffee in here okay coffees screamer and sugar see if we can make you a cup of coffee don't you know Rob oh right no we'll try black okay so black I'm gonna try blight to see what it tastes like all right very good very good Matt to get another cup maybe I need another cup [Applause] what is still like piping hot fine hang on I got to put your coffee in there so you put the coffee bag in there and then do you just put a little bit more water in this or is it still pretty much as go no it's good it should be warm all right so that says to squeeze the air out of it so we're gonna squeeze the air out of as best we can mm-hmm all right let's put your coffee in here okay oh that is warm is it true yeah and it'll it'll kind of find its way all right let's do that yeah you want to you want to lay it flat hold on oh yeah there you go oh thanks terrible good for now good for them yeah put that coffee in there let it let it get one go all right here's my keys do you like a little bit of a mess oh yeah no that's fine if you're not making a mess you're not eating any more you all right so and you still got your water you got your sports drink over there so you can see that there's a lot in an MRE in terms of how everything comes together I'm I'm impressed I didn't know the whole list for being there says beef stew I'm thinking I just got beef stew and like maybe a bag to heat it in and maybe some bread it's intended to be a meal hmm okay now in some situations like if you're really active in the field you're doing a whole heck of a lot your training you're in combat or whatever you know your caloric intake will vary based on what you're doing okay so it's not uncommon for soldiers in the field to eat two or three MREs in a day then you may very well be consuming 6 to 7,000 calories yeah each of these MREs has you know quite a bit of calories ok now so we've got our cookies one bright these open while we're waiting on this will be nice with the coffee and cookies ok you guys yeah so let's uh break this open we've got oatmeal cookies oatmeal cookies oatmeal cookies Alf breakdowns they've got a little piece right there else name the little piece they eat too much sugar these days I just like fall asleep mm-hmm say what I got7 boy why are you doing that where's our stainless steel cup alright so this is the cup from the man can let's have a look then just little lid there we go son please Anne Boleyn coffee him something to put some boiling coffee in and then look you can even strain it mm-hmm put the little strainer on the lid very handy yeah alright this cookie is good cookies bang dude now the thing that I want to know is what this this creamer spread is what what would this be well it's I'm not sure you'll cut sugar so I'm guessing this may be for your coffee or something if I don't know I'm not sure because they've got powdered creamer here which I mean I'm not a fan of non-dairy creamer that's just dairy creamer should just be kind of sugary I guess sweet creamer spread I wonder and oh you know if this is meant to be like pop tart glazing or something is it sweet they just sweet alright so I don't know what that's supposed to be to be honest with you I never we never got any of that I don't know Oh wonderful just like a yeah like a like what would you call it a nice glazed doughnut like a like a doughnut or like glazing on top of a pop cork because I love like glaze it be good on those cookies man where the cookies out more than cookies just I'm gonna check on your coffee here while you're doing that I see today on film with Eric and tab your heater is losing a little bit of porosity here let me see I don't know if our heater is spent or not we maybe maybe at the end of our road on the heater well might have waited too long that's a con that that's okay see one yeah you're probably a little bit one please enough the tribe you see that's my hat sky was cold I think maybe we should have put your coffee in there with a meal and took advantage of the whole let's try adding maybe a little is it dry in there in terms of it's dry yeah that's more water yeah little water there see if it'll pipe up see if it heats up anymore and maybe spam yeah maybe we should have put the coffee excuse me we're going I think we're uh we might just steaming it off I think we might have gotten to the end of the road on another state or maybe the appropriate thing would have been to put the coffee in there with the meal and that way everything could heat it once so that's okay I'll I'll take the blame for that one for you not having your coffee it's a lesson to learn but you know if usually when you're out in the field okay or if you've got a whole bunch of people when everybody's eating MREs there's always gonna be somebody that doesn't use their heat packet so if this did wind up happening you could always score another packet from somebody else really does it get them at all yes even it a little bit well known aside but on this side it is say a little bit more not much it's trying yeah okay cool baby it just come put a buddy step oh yeah try it try that we can try that coffee here in a bit that was it that's pretty much a marina nutshell okay basically you would rinse and repeat each of the meals offers something a little bit different my experience with them is mainly from military use obviously but with Emory nation in the way that they're handling this it's pretty smart to be able to cater your own MRE if you want so you could pick out like maybe four or five of your favorite meals overall and you could also strategically kind of plan the way you want these meals to come out so you're not getting like bored with them either so you know let's say that you could do like a beef meal a chicken meal you could do maybe uh whatever a port meal power whatever they offer you could just you know mix and match a little bit and then as you try these things you also kind of figure out what's useful to you what isn't some people don't like the cheese spread some people don't like the peanut butter so it allows you to kind of cater that to your needs and apparently this is some sort of a desert spread okay it's what else is meant to be when we were filming putting these men canes around the website and they have like a build-your-own amore section so I guess you can not get all the components that you want and you just get them sent to you and then you just package them yourself I suppose well no they can't attack for you oh yeah they package them for you that's what I'm saying so you're making your own custom memory you would go in and you would pick the meal selections you want and it comes prepackaged just like just like you want just like you want all right cooked yep yeah it's not really getting that hot it's a little warm but let's just uh let's just try out cold coffee man let's just see what it see what it tastes like at least I'm not like coffee connoisseur but yeah I do own the French press this ain't no French press let's get you can pour it in here it looks like it's going sweetie yeah do you see oh yes do you see little milspec plus cup here why not this was also the main cannon from the survival month so we're using some of the items here watch it you got grounds in there too okay okay cool well it's like instant coffee there okay cool all right I just didn't get hot enough to get everything out of there all right cold coffee tastes like coffee I'll be it cold yeah I can deal but if you really want some coffee and it was either this or nothing I take it you do have sugar in creamer oh we didn't use our salt and pepper well you know there's enough sodium in those things are nice man the the beef stew is RealFlight before I mean it didn't need any seasons or anything that I don't see all right let's try a piece this cake no Mays me I need a cookie I can't eat all this stuff are moist habitat battier not too bad yeah then you can get your moist towelette clean yourself off and go back whatever you were doing we know this will be a fun video just to show you guys you know maybe some of you aren't familiar with MREs and Chad's never had an MRE so we thought it'd be fun to kind of walk him through hmmm what one of these is like this is very indicative of what you would expect an average MRE so um you know we did MRA nation did the man cans for us with the meals that we've sent out in the survival can so it ought to be cool to unbox away these things and just really see what it's all about so people can see just what you're really getting and I definitely want to take a moment to thank all of our viewers thank you for watching we really appreciate it definitely want to thank all of our patreon supporters and look those of you who purchased man cams and t-shirts over on the website all of those funds go right back into supporting the channel thank you guys so very much for supporting us and believing in what we do man cans is really fun we really like the challenge of putting together fun products for you if you're interested and a man can just go over and check out the link in the description box below you'll see which one's for sale now probably the medical can I think medical supplies isn't one that we're doing right now but uh yeah we thought this be a fun video we hope you enjoyed it thank you very much and we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Iraqveteran8888

Views: 238,885

Rating: 4.9044967 out of 5

Keywords: iraqveteran8888, iv8888, mre nation, mre, first time trying mre, mre taste test, mre review, mrenation, chad tries mre, iv8888 mre, military food, trying an mre, taste test, meal ready to eat review, meal ready to eat military

Id: aPZroaoPoRo

Length: 31min 20sec (1880 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 26 2019