Harry: From calorie
count to portion sizes, we wanted to find the
differences between MREs and ration packs in the US and the UK. This is "Food Wars." A US MRE is manufactured and packaged by Wornick, AmeriQual, and Sopakco and comes in one standard pack size. UK MREs, or ration packs, as we call them, are produced by Vestey Foods and come in three portion sizes. The standard portion is
this, a 24-hour ration pack. You can also get a smaller version, which is a 12-hour ration pack, and our biggest portion is this. This is a 10-man operational pack, which contains 10 of these
24-hour ration packs. According to the Defense
Logistics Agency website, a case of MREs, which is 12 meals, weighs around 22 pounds,
or 9.98 kilograms. So on average, one meal
would be roughly 831.6 grams. The approximate weight of
one of these ration packs is 1.75 kilograms. We're going to weigh it
to see if that's accurate. So, the weight of our 24-hour ration pack here in the UK was
actually 1.49 kilograms. This is a bit lower
than the promised 1.75. I don't know if you're
a soldier in the field if this is actually a positive thing because you've got less
weight to carry or if you're actually getting slightly less
food than you were promised. In the UK, our ration pack menu No. 2 contains a chili con carne. We're going to compare
ours to the American chili to see who's getting more. I do think I've lost a little bit in here. And if I were eating this
straight out of the packet, maybe tearing the packet
open, getting better access, I could probably get that
closer to the 300 mark. So, here are the contents
of a 24-hour ration pack in the UK. In total, we counted 29 edible items as well as a few extra
bits, including tissues, sanitary wipes, matches,
and other stuff like that. Joe: We counted 11 edible
items in our US ration pack. Here are all the military MREs for the US not available in the UK. And here are all the
ration packs in the UK that you can't find in the US. There's actually very few overlap of specific meals in US MREs
and the UK ration packs. Also, depending on which MRE meal you get, they contain different
combinations of snacks and sides. In both countries, official
MREs are not available for sale directly to consumers. Basically, when you get
a ration pack in the UK, it will come with a
corresponding menu number. The menu number will give
you a rough indication of what you're going to find inside, although there is a bit of variation. So, what we've done here
is lay out the breakfast and the main-course options
in order of the menus. In the UK, we're currently able to get hold of menus one to 10. All right. We got the US MREs. I think we got every menu, one through 24. We're going to go through the entrées and the breakfasts now. I want to point out that for the US MREs, not every single one came
with a definitive breakfast, and some of them just had something that was fruit or fruit-related, which we assumed was supposed to be eaten first thing in the morning. Now, all of these can be
eaten either hot or cold. I guess ideally, you'd
have them heated up. We actually got sent this
flameless heating bag. Instructions for use. This is either going to go really well or I'm going to give myself and the "Food Wars" table
some chemical burns. I'm going to do a chili
because we've already got a chili opened and I kind
of know what they taste like. Filter line only. And then leave that for 10 minutes. Oh. Well, it works. [laughs] I hope I've sealed that well enough, because that steamed
up very quickly there. So, while that does its thing,
I guess all that remains is for me to try the rest of them. Starting down here, remember
our good friend the chili? Not bad. I would say as
average as chili can be. I think, honestly, I've never been in the military,
I haven't done any service, but I used to camp a lot when I was a kid, and I do remember going on sometimes two-, three-week-long
canoe trips in Canada. Couple days in, this is, like, gourmet. You know what I'm talking about. Like, your standards change quickly when you're outside all day. It comes with a cornbread. This cornbread muffin's
actually really good. Let's try it with the chili. So, the breakfast that we got for menu one was pork sausage and
beans in a tomato sauce. This is kind of an iconic
British meal. I can't lie. It's kind of good. We're starting off strong. I like that. Next up, we have a pindi chana aloo, which seems to be a
potato and chickpea curry. And then the final option
from menu one in the UK, meatballs and pasta. Do I have high or low expectations
for meatballs and pasta? Yeah, I mean, I think my fear was that,
like, pasta doesn't hold up very well when it's kind of submerged in a sauce and cooked for a while, and I think that's kind of come true. Meatballs are all right, though. Menu No. 2, shredded
beef in barbecue sauce, but also came with seasoned
black beans and tortillas. So, I mean, I don't know how you would do this out in the field with no
plates and not a table. And then the beans. A military taco. Here we go. These beans are rock solid. The consistency's a little weird. This one is the chicken and noodles with vegetables in sauce. Yeah, this looks like a can of, like, chunky soup or chunky stew before you heat it up. This definitely should
be heated up before. And this smell — oh,
my God, this is brutal. If you had this and you couldn't heat it
up for some reason ... This is very bad. The first potential breakfast, the applesauce with raspberry puree. Now we're talking here. Oh, my God, that does
not taste like fruit. That tastes like pure sugar. There is fruit in it, but it tastes more like
fruit-flavored soda. This will definitely wake
you up in the morning. Then we're on to menu two, and the breakfast is a
raspberry muesli with milk. Now, it says "with milk," but
there is no liquid in here. So I think what they've
done is actually put powdered milk in here,
and you add some water, and then hopefully that kind of turns into something resembling milk. It looks very chalky and powdery at the moment, without the water in it. It says to add around 100 mils of water, mix it, and then leave it
to stand for a minute or so. But yeah. I mean, now that's
looking a lot more like muesli. That's actually not bad.
I'm quite impressed by that. There is a slightly noticeable difference between that and real milk. Then the mains for menu two, obviously the chili con carne, which we opened for the
portion-sizes section. Not the best visuals, but it's quite hard to make a
nice-looking chili anyway, so, it's more about the taste. It's not spicy. Pretty well seasoned. And then menu two also has a rajma masala. The longer I leave this one, I think this is the first one that has actually a bit of heat to it, but not unpleasant at all,
just a nice warmth there. This hits close to home. Spaghetti with beef and sauce. Oh, and it even came
with Italian breadsticks. What do we think? It's not meatballs. They had meatballs. We
only have meat sauce. Breadsticks. They're a bit dry. They're the most driest
thing I've ever eaten. These are so dry. White chicken chunks. Oh, no! It's just, look. Yeah, just canned white chicken. No, I would be so bummed. Yeah, this is the worst one. So, we got a beef taco
filling with Santa Fe rice. Um, not horrible. Decent
seasoning, but yeah, I think what's missing
for all these is cheese. Then we're on to menu three, and we have our first duplicate item. It's another muesli for breakfast. Now, this one, I'm intrigued by. One of the main options in menu three, steak and vegetables with dumplings. A classic British beef stew is kind of one of my favorite foods. Having said that, I've opened this, and it looks and smells like cat food. Now, I've been eating most of
these straight out of the bag because they've had a kind of
texture which permits that, but this one I think we're
going to have to plate up. This apparently is steak and
vegetables with dumplings. Now, I started this section by saying that all of these can
be eaten hot or cold, and I do think that's true. I guess the question is
whether or not all of them should be eaten hot or cold. And I think this one, just
immediately from the look of it, I think probably needs to be heated up because we've had our first
womp-womp moment of the episode. [womp womp] That's not good. Beef strips in a savory tomato sauce. Marinara sauce with meatballs. Wait, so there's no noodles?
Just sauce and meatballs? Oh, my goodness. Look how
little these meatballs are. Look at these little guys. There's no pasta in
there, just the meatballs. Yeah, ooh. SpaghettiO
level of meat flavor. Beef stew. Oh, at least
this one has noodles. And this one came with a "breakfast" that was grape jelly. We're going to jump ahead
slightly to menu eight because that's where I've
taken our hot main from. And the alarm has just gone off, which means it's ready to eat. Once it's cooked, just tear it along here, and then it's at the perfect height that you can then just also tear this and eat the whole thing. It's changed the consistency
of this a little bit. I think with the steak and
vegetables, for example, I think that would change
the consistency a lot, whereas this has just made it a little bit more runny, but not too bad. That was very hot, but
that's still really good. I think this one I do
prefer heated up, actually. It brings out a few more of the flavors, a little bit more depth of flavor to it. That's really good, and I'm so impressed with this heating-pad thing. The heating pad, as well as
just, I guess, warmed-up meals. Thumbs up from me so far. Macaroni in a beef
sauce. Well, that's good. We got noodles! And the chili. Oh, that's terrible. It
doesn't taste like anything. Vegetarian taco pasta, which is a vegetable crumble
with pasta in taco-style sauce. Is this supposed to be "Zapplesauce"? Who doesn't love a little applesauce? Again, wow, super sweet. With sugar, not high-fructose
corn syrup, so that's a plus. And the last item from menu three is a beef burrito-style filling with rice. Sadly, this does not
come with any tortillas, so you can't make an
actual burrito with it. There's a little bit more spice than anything else that I've had so far. The texture of the rice would be improved by heating this one up because the rice is still
a little bit al dente. Elbow macaroni in tomato sauce. Granted, I mean, I know
I gotta heat them up. Yeah, this one's all right. Mango peach applesauce.
I'm liking the applesauce. This would be considered,
I guess, a breakfast, or ... it's fruity, so maybe this you would
have first thing in the day. Ooh, yeah. Ooh, this is really good. Next up, we've got menu four, and we're starting with
an all-day breakfast. Apparently it differs
from the sausage and beans because this contains some omelet as well as some bacon pieces. I think my only criticism
of this is that the sauce that they put the beans
in is exceptionally sweet. Carrying on through menu four, we have a pasta Bolognese main. I have a similar concern
to the meatballs and pasta. I think that is roughly the color that you want your Bolognese
sauce to look like. I think when I looked at this
one, I was expecting worse. Again, the vibe I'm getting, particularly from the pasta dishes, is very much tinned-pasta vibe, like a tinned Bolognese. And the last menu-four item is a chicken curry with potatoes and rice. There's actual decent-sized pieces of what I hope is chicken. Less flavorful than
some of the other ones. I want to try heating some of these up. You do this. And then
you put your MRE inside. Sorry, if you can't tell,
we're adding water to this. Here we go. Real exciting stuff here in the studio! While we're moving on, so, we got one, two, three heating up. The staff was able to make
this thing work. I was not. I don't know why. We're moving on. We have a cheese tortellini
in a tomato sauce. Oh, yeah, look at this. They got the whole tortellini right there. Then we're on to menu five, and we're starting off
with another muesli. It's the third muesli
we've had in five meals. The variation, I think, is going to start to kind of run dry. Speaking of a lack of variation, meal five also has
another pasta Bolognese. The different option from meal five is a sweet and sour chicken with rice. Good color on it. Nice
familiar orange color. There's pineapple in
this. And water chestnuts. I'm kind of impressed.
This is pretty good. I'd say this leans more on the balance of sweet rather than sweet and sour. I think with the water chestnut and also the pineapple chunks, there's still some things
in there with bite, which I appreciate. Creamy spinach fettuccine
with egg noodles, spinach, and mushroom in a cream sauce. Ugh. it feels like they're going a little, I don't want to say overboard because I figure you gotta
have a variety of meals, but doesn't a fettuccine with
mushrooms in a cream sauce, like, after a long day of hauling stuff around and soldiering and exhausting job and
carrying all this stuff, just being like, "Ah, let's kick back with some spinach, mushrooms
in a cream sauce," like. The most colorful one so far. I don't feel great. I do not feel good. Next up is menu six, which we've actually
covered all of already. Starts with an all-day
breakfast, which I've had, then moves on to another pasta Bolognese, which I've also had, and
finishes with my old friend steak vegetables with dumplings, which I will absolutely
not be trying again. This should be the
Mexican-style chicken stew. Oh, and then they're saying there's another "Tear
here to remove the MRE." Very smart. So you got
a second spot to tear. This is really smart. Second spot to tear. So it's easier just to grab the MRE out. All right, so the package is hot, so it feels like this is much ... kind of smooshing around a little bit. So, they are still flimsy tortillas, but it looks like they're
chipotle flavored. Not as gelatinous, I guess. Definitely better heated up. Yeah, I like this. It's pretty good. Next up is menu seven, which, I don't know if
this was deliberate or not, but appears to be a fully vegetarian menu. For starters, we have a
vegetarian all-day breakfast. I think the main difference
is that they've subbed out the meat sausages for vegetarian sausages. It's another one that
seems to be mostly beans. It seems very fitting
that the British army is powered by baked beans. Makes you proud to be British. It's got the same issue as before, that the beans are just I think too sweet. One of the main-course
options in menu seven is the rajma masala with rice,
which I've again also had, but one that I have not had is a vegetable and chickpea biryani. I like a biryani. For those who don't know,
it's just various things, sometimes meat, in this case vegetables, cooked down with rice and
a bunch of Indian spices. I've had much better biryani in the past. I'm sure there are lots
of people watching at home and recoiling in horror
at the thought of this being a biryani, but it's OK, and I think on the whole,
vegetarian menu, pretty good. Moving on, we have the
chicken burrito bowl, which comes in a bag and not a bowl. Sure, a lot of it's just, like ... eh, no. We got some heated up, so
you can see the difference when it's not heated up. It's
just this weird gel cube. And that comes with what
essentially would be considered a breakfast, I guess, apple
pieces in a spiced sauce. So, the entrée appears to be a maple-flavored pork sausage patty. OK, so just one block of — yep. Ah, it is of course just this. It's like a Clif Bar, but pork. Not good. Really weird. It tastes surprisingly bland. A hash brown potato with
bacon, pepper, and onions. Ooh, no! This is the most
cat-food-y-looking one. Menu eight is another duplicate one. We start with another all-day breakfast. Then there's another chili con carne, which I've actually already
heated up and eaten. And we have another beef
burrito-style filling with rice. A cooked beef ravioli, once again. It, like, heated the bottom of it, so you still gotta
massage it a little bit. Like, this side is heated, and then this middle
part didn't get heated. It also came with
tortillas, which is funny. This is what this looks
like, and it looks gross. Menu nine starts with more muesli, then moves to a new dish,
which is sausage casserole. This is another classic British dish, a sausage casserole. Slow-cooked stewed sausages with tomato, potatoes, other vegetables. On the whole, the sausages
have actually been, like, surprisingly good. It might just be because I quite like those slightly cheap,
like, prepackaged sausages. And then for your other main course, we have another pindi chana aloo. This one, another hot one. Oh, so it's just going to be a patty? Ugh! Yuelei: Oh! Joe: It has a sauce, apparently. It's grilled jalapeño
pepper jack flavored. Comes with au gratin potatoes. Au gratin potatoes? What
do you think of that? This looks really rough. Italian sausage with peppers,
onions in a marinara sauce. Yeah, OK. Menu No. 21 should be lemon pepper tuna or tuna chunks in a bag. We've just been informed that this bag actually says white chicken
chunks, which we saw before. There is a lemon pepper
tuna that we don't have. And finally, last but not
least, we have menu 10, which starts with an instant porridge. The cooking instructions actually specify that you need to put boiling water in it, leave it for three minutes
to soak, and then eat it, whereas all the other ones are technically able to be eaten cold. Menu 10 has a couple of mains, one of which is another beef burrito-style filling with rice. And our final main course
is hunters chicken. It's another plate one, which I don't think is a compliment. Doesn't look great, does
it? This is hunters chicken. Traditionally, this is chicken
breast with some bacon, some cheese, some barbecue sauce. I think bits of chicken in here, although I'm kind of
struggling to see where. I think it's these small bits rather than, like, a chicken breast. Nah, that's really bad. Beef goulash. Beef with brown rice, spinach, carrots, tomatoes,
and smoked paprika. A pepperoni pizza and cheese slice. [groans] Army pizza. Oh, God! That's so bad. This has been brutal. I don't know what it is about this food. Like, yeah, some things tasted bad, but most things just tasted OK, but I have a headache and my
stomach doesn't feel good. I noticed there's a
lot of sodium in these. So that might have
something to do with it. Tortillas came with this one, the Southwest-style beef
and black beans with sauce. Again, we have very few "breakfasts," but this one is mixed
fruit, which appears to be, there's some chunks in there. So you got a bag of mixed fruit. On top of the mains and breakfast options, you also get a dessert
in a British ration pack. The options we got today
included a chocolate brownie, a cinnamon cake, a vanilla cake, a chocolate cake, or an orange cake. The US MREs have an
assortment of desserts, which looks all right: muffin
tops, cookies, puddings, cakes, a bun, a toaster
pastry, cookies, and cobblers. I'll try a couple of these.
I want to try the brownie because it's packaged
differently to the others and because I like brownie. It looks a little bit more
cakey than brownie-ish, but, uh, we'll see. No. That's so dry. Starting down here, get a maple muffin top or a chocolate banana nut muffin top. Three different types of cookies. You get a oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, chocolate chip cookie, and
oatmeal cookie. That's funny. And actually, now that I think about it, we've got patriotic sugar cookies. Could be in the cookie category. The packaging was different,
so I separated them, but I'm curious what a patriotic
sugar cookie looks like. Oh, no, nothing. These look like broken-up
Girl Scout cookies. Is that a rocket? What is that? I don't know what that is.
Do you know what that is? Joe: Ah! It's the Liberty Torch.
[eagle calling] Oh, it's a bunch of different ones, but they're all broken up. Oh, well. These are pretty good. Then I wanted to try
one of the cake options. It's actually probably the cinnamon that appeals to me the most, so. I mean, this looks better. It could be, again, slightly more moist, but it's got a pretty nice texture to it. There's definitely a
cinnamon flavor there. In terms of, like,
shelf-stable baked goods, this is a much better
effort than the brownie was. This is actually perfectly edible. I have an assortment of pound cakes. Applesauce poundcake, lemon
poppy seed pound cake, vanilla pound cake, marble pound cake. Cinnamon bun and a toaster pastry that just feels completely
destroyed in here. So, I don't know what toaster you're using out in the
field, but all right. And last, this package that
looks like all the other ones is a cherry blueberry cobbler. Eh, I think this'll just be fine. Oh, that's colorful. But it just looks like a
whole thing of, like, jelly. Every ration pack in the UK also comes with four
to five snack options. We've taken all of the ones we got from menus one to 10
and laid them out here. Snacks. Our US MREs come
with a lot of snacks. You usually find three or four of these in each MRE in various combinations. So, here we have a mixed-fruit snack, which is, like, a fruit puree in one of these handy little pouches. First of all, I mean,
how bright do these look, just compared to all the packs you've been dealing with this whole video? Like, I'm looking at these, I almost want to, like,
turn the saturation down. Peppermint candy rings,
and then you got M&M's, Twizzler nibs, more M&M's, Skittles, Skittles, Reese's Pieces. Very nice. Thank you. There are a few different peanut options on the menus in the UK, starting with barbecue
peanuts, some chili peanuts, and the classic salted peanuts. Dried fruit, dried cranberries, raisins, and a trail mix that has ... a nut raisin mix. For the trail. Here we have cheddar cheese flavor spread. In the UK, if you're having cheese, you have cheese and crackers. So I feel like maybe this
is supposed to be enjoyed with some of these crackers down this end. Down here, three different types
of energy bars you can get. I've never heard of
the brand First Strike. Not sure if that is a brand that exists outside the military, but you can get an apple cinnamon, chocolate, or cran-raspberry energy bar. Oh, geez, look at this thing. A bunch of junk. It tastes OK. Next, we have a fruit flapjack. Flapjack in the UK is a mixture of oats, syrup, butter, and often raisins, which are kind of packed together to make a nice nutritious sweet treat. This is an oatmeal block. I'm
not really sure what this is. I'm actually going to open this one just out of curiosity more than anything. Looks like a sort of shortbread
biscuit on the outside. Yeah, somewhere between
a digestive biscuit and a rusk, which, for the uninitiated, is I think an oaty biscuit that's basically made for babies. I feel like I used to steal rusks from my baby sister when she was little. Sorry, Annie. Trail mix, granola, nuts. You get it. Packages of either dry-roasted nuts. Man, they really sucked this
thing dry. Look at that. Same with this one, the smoked almonds and jalapeño cashews. Recovery trail mix with pretzels, granola, and this trail mix that
has beef jerky in it. Wanna mainline your jerky? US government has you covered. Beef sticks. Here we have a sachet of peanut butter. We have three different
types of jam that we found. We have apricot, we have plum,
and we have strawberry jam. This is an exotic-fruits nougat bar. Here we have a sesame bar, which is basically just sesame seeds held together with melted sugar. Apricot oat biscuits. A tropical fruit and nut mix, as well as just nuts and just fruit. Cheese-filled cracker, pepperoni flavor; cheese-filled pretzel, cheddar flavor; pretzel nuggets; barbecue corn nuggets; barbecue-flavored corn kernels. So like corn nuts, right? Baked snack crackers, cheddar flavor; and the protein puffs,
ring-shaped, barbecue. I feel like if you get these
ones, you've done quite well. These sound fancy. We have
chocolate orange mini cookies and coconut biscuit bites. These sound like a more gourmet approach to a ration-pack snack. On to the breads and
spreads, we'll call it. Multigrain bread, white wheat snack bread, wheat snack bread. I mean, how good are the
shots we have to get of these? Everything looks the same. And then this one, Italian
bread blobbity blob. Got it. OK, great. You have a vegetable cracker
or a regular cracker. What do you want to put on
those breads or crackers? You got chunky peanut
butter, peanut butter, chocolate peanut spread, cheese bread, cheese
spread with jalapeños, cheese spread with bacon. Here we have cheese and oat biscuits, which I think are probably
designed, like I say, to be eaten with the cheesy spread. Next up, our biscuit browns. I wasn't sure what a biscuit brown was, and after tasting it, I'm
still kind of equally unsure. It's, like, a sort of brown, like, wheaty cracker-type thing. For the fruit, you got
apple jelly, strawberry jam, and I know there was a
grape jelly from earlier. I don't know where it went. But it looks exactly like this package. And finally, we have a
cookies and cream bar. [laughs] That's not what
I was expecting at all. When you hear cookies and cream, I'm right in thinking that
you expect Oreo, right? Whereas this is more like a
rice crispy type of treat. Doesn't smell of Oreo at all. It literally smells of
a rice crispy treat, maybe dark chocolate. Doesn't taste great either. The US MREs have an assortment
of different drinks, both I guess regular temperature and warm. So, the first thing I want
to do before we get into that is point out that we have four different, in the middle here, coffee drinks, hot drinks, as you will have it. This is a French vanilla cappuccino. Mm. And I want to make it real quick. And we saw how we heated
up the drinks before, so. Here it also comes with
a hot beverage bag. Pre-added the water. So now I'm going to go ahead and put powder in here. This looks all right.
Mix it up a little bit. ♪ I have me cappuccino ♪ It smells like when the
VCR gets really hot, when you watch, like,
three movies in a row. Now we're on to the drink
options, which, again, I think you get four of in a
24-hour British ration pack. These all come in the form of powders, which you mix with water and then consume. They're also split into
four different categories. We have just a standard drink powder, we have an energy drink powder, a fortified energy drink powder, and we have an isotonic drink powder. Having quickly scanned the
ingredients of both of these, I'm actually not sure what
the difference is between, say, an energy drink powder and a standard fruit-flavor powder. There's no caffeine in the
energy powders, for example. I think most of the energy is coming from the sugar content in these. While that's cooking, let's
see what other drinks we have. We got orange, lemon-lime, and grape. That's definitely not grape
colored. It says grape on here. I think it tastes like grape,
but also because it's blue, I'm thinking blue raspberry. While my coffee is cooking, I also have different coffee flavors. I get a chocolate hazelnut protein drink, Irish cream cappuccino,
chocolate protein drink. Regardless of the type of drink
powder that you're getting, they do come in a bunch of
different flavor options. I'm not sure if any of these
particularly appeal to me. I'll try the tutti-frutti one. I feel like of all of
these, sounds pretty fun. Yeah, I was really hoping
that the color would be, like, a bright blue or pink or
something, but just normal. It's unlocking some kind of, like, repressed alcohol memory, I think. I'm fairly sure I've drunk a cocktail to the point of oblivion that
tasted pretty much like this. So, this is my French vanilla coffee. Oh, yeah. I'm not recognizing a lot of these words, but yeah, this is nice. And the last thing we have
here are beverage base powders. So, these had electrolytes in them. It's like energy drinks almost. And then these, I think, are just, these have lots of sugar in them. So, we have lemon-lime,
orange, and tropical punch, and then this little stick, beverage base, orange type three. Finally, every ration pack in the UK also contains a bag of common items. We'll start down this end,
where we have some matches. Then we have some
water-purification tablets. I think there are six of
these in here, actually. And according to this, you can purify a liter
of water per tablet. That's pretty good. I like that this is in
the essential-items thing. We have some hot sauce. We have some tissues, as well as two alcohol-free hand wipes. Then you have two tea bags,
two sachets of instant coffee, four sachets of beverage whitener. I think, again, this might be
something along the lines of they can't legally call
this powdered milk, but it is effectively a
powdered-milk substitute. And four sachets of sugar. Our US MREs have these
following accessories. First of all, over here, you've seen it a few times this
episode, the heating thing, the heating bags to heat up
your food and your drinks. Saw this the whole time, the spoon. Every MRE comes with a spoon. Now, did you notice I had a difficult time kind of cutting into some
stuff? And I thought, why don't they have anything
like a knife in here? Of course they have a knife. They're soldiers. They have pocket knives. They come with a
concentrated beverage base. This one is cranberry grape. Over here is the coffee
zone, for the most part. Bill's Brew freeze-dried coffee. You can add it to hot or cold water. 6 ounces right here. And you have your choice
of either Splenda or sugar. Salt, if you need more
sodium on your food. This is a coffee creamer. Each pack of accessories
comes with two pieces of gum. These are waterproof matches. Spice up that food a little
bit, a little bit of Tabasco. A little Tabasco guy. Look
at this little guy. Right? A moist towelette and regular napkins. In the US, MREs were first
introduced in the 1980s and were designed to be
lightweight, portable, and self-contained meals that didn't require
cooking or refrigeration. They were also intended to
provide the necessary nutrition for soldiers in the field. Early iterations of British ration packs actually used cans. It wasn't until the 1990s that these were replaced with pouches. Each MRE typically contains
around 1,200 to 1,300 calories with balanced nutrition essential
to supporting the demands placed on soldiers during
military operations. Each MRE is said to have approximately 170 grams of carbohydrates, 45 grams of protein, and 50 grams of fat. As we've said, a British
ration pack is usually designed for 24 hours' worth of nutrition, whereas it seems as if
the American ones are not. We can assume this because
the average nutritional value of an entire British ration pack is somewhere between
3,800 and 4,200 calories. Now, here's a chili meal from before. We're going to go through
its specific nutrition. Now, I want to point out that the bag didn't have anything on it, so I am learning about the
nutrition of these in real time. The chili with the
beans, one serving size. All this is 260 calories. And this single serving of cornbread with your chili, also 260 calories. Your vegetable cracker is
going to be 170 calories, and your cheesy spread is 120 calories. Then the cheese-filled crackers,
the pepperoni pizza flavor, 240 calories for this one. And if you're going to be sipping on your lemon-lime-flavored non-fruit-juice juice, that's going to be 130 calories
for the whole beverage. A grand total of this many calories. We've selected some items
which seem to match up roughly with what you'd expect
to find in a US MRE. Here we have the chili con carne main. We've got some crackers
with the cheese spread, some peanut butter, and
a fruit-flavored drink. The total calories for
these items comes to 1,379. The FDA recommends that adults consume around 75 to 90 milligrams
of vitamin C per day. Just two of these drink sachets is more than enough
vitamin C for that intake. We are not getting scurvy anymore. We learned our lessons
back in the navy days. Although it's also worth noting the amount of sugar
that is in one of these. In a 45-gram sachet of mango
and passion fruit drink, you will find 40.5 grams of sugar. That's 81% of your daily
recommended intake, just in one of these. Let's take a look at the ingredients of the chili con carne in the UK. Beef, red kidney beans,
tomato puree, water, onion, red and green peppers, wheat
flour, calcium carbonate, iron, thiamine, and nicotinamide,
modified maize starch, salt, spices, spice extracts, calcium carbonate, and smoke flavor. The ingredients in here are
actually all pretty natural, without any real artificial preservatives. Our eyebrows were raised when we saw nicotinamide
in the wheat flour. Thankfully, it's not
some kind of nicotine, it's just another type of
vitamin B3, aka niacin. This chili with beans contains all this. Looks like mostly normal stuff until you get the bottom
of the list there. Ethoxylated mono- diglycerides,
I have no idea what that is. I don't think we've ever had
that in "Food Wars" before. So if someone in editing can go ahead and say what it's used for ... These have a minimum
shelf life of three years, depending on storage conditions. The storage conditions for these MREs I'm assuming were room
temperature the whole time, so I'm feeling pretty confident
these are all not expired. Similarly, ours have a shelf
life of around three years, and after that, it's
down to the temperature at which they're stored. For example, this chili
was made in December 2021 and apparently is shelf
stable until around 2025. "But how can these meals have such a long shelf life?" you ask. According to the USDA, MREs are shelf stable
because they have been commercially sterilized by heat in a sealed container to destroy bacteria that can make it unsafe or spoil the food. Like food in metal cans, MREs can be kept for a long
time, but not indefinitely. The shelf life of MREs and ration packs is pretty directly related to the temperature at
which they're stored. The cooler the storage temperature, the longer they'll last. Rations in a desert temperature might only last a few months, whereas rations at room
temperature or colder climates can be good up to five years. We're filming this
towards the end of 2023, which means that our chili
con carne, for example, is already around two years old. I've gotta say, I don't feel
great after eating them. However, I do think
that's probably more due to the quantity that I've eaten rather than due to the
storage quality of these. Since 1981, the US menu has
changed about five times, improving the quality and the taste. It also has expanded the menu variety and now includes vegetarian,
kosher, and halal options. There also aren't many changes in the UK. However, there was a recent
controversial change. Chocolate bars were taken
away from British troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan because they kept melting
in the desert heat. They were replaced with the
much less popular peanut butter. I can see how people would
be annoyed about that. So, you get five matches as well as one of these
little striking strips. I broke it, so, whoopsy daisy.
