Best and Worse Tasting MRE's

Meals Rejected by Everyone!

Lord knows I've eaten my share of the good, the bad and the 'What the hell was that?"

Anyway I was thinking if we all share our good and bad encounters with MRE's maybe we could give our less learned fellows a heads up on what to eat and what to stay away from, so I hope you all will add too...

Well My fav was the Meatballs and Marinara Sauce--- but the Veggie Burger was just plan 'NASTY'!!! the best thing that came in that pack was the spoon.

BTW did anyone else have a prob with the smell from the Tuna one's?

Oh and save your Pound cake--- that's one of those high value trade items---

There's my short list, now lets see yours

Best: Chili Mac. that stuff is heaven if you like spicy and add the cheese packet to it once everything is heated.
Worst: Veggie Omelette. i would rather lick a latrine clean than eat that disgusting thing and nothing makes it taste better, not even mud.

The tuna did have a strange smell but tabasco fixed it well.
Shockolates, the chocolate coated coffee beans, those were AWESOME


Edit: i would trade my last can of chew for a couple spiced pound cakes

Its been a few years since i had one, but my favorites of the time were the eggs, ham, and the goulash.

Never had a tuna MRE. I suppose I'm not missing anything there. The pound cakes were tasty as well. I can see how they would be a big ticket item.

a reply to: shaneslaughta
sounds like you missed out on the First Strike MRE.
Those are amazing to say the least.

a reply to: EyesOpenMouthShut

All the ones ive ever had were random surplus from swap meets. I remember one of them being quite old in fact. Something like ten years if memory serves.

Do you have any info on the "First Strike" MRE you speak of?

They actually just re did several about 2-3 years ago got rid of some of the most hated and brought in a couple more..

The one that stands out in my memory was the buffalo wings, it was actually very very good.

a reply to: shaneslaughta
here you go.
First Strike Info

Couldnt say .. mre's were long after my time ..
We had the C's back then .. favorite part of those was the sliced peaches .. a small packet of cigarettes in them ..matches .. along with the packets of coffee , creamer and sugar ..
The empty cans after eating came in handy for making boobytraps ..

a reply to: HardCorps

When I first enlisted, we were still being issued C-Rats. The beef stew was quite good as was the spaghetti. The corn beef hash totally blew though.

And I've been eating MRE's since 1986 till 2011. The freeze dried beef and freeze dried pork patties were pretty nasty. What pissed me off though towards the end is the lack of coffee packets. What self respecting NCO would be drinking kool-aid first thing in the morning?

Ham slice I hated to get, they stopped making those a few years back, didn't seem filling. Fav is /was chili Mac, and meatballs in sauce. MRE's were better with the Tabasco sauce but that too seems rare to get anymore, Sucks!

You can have my poppyseed pound cake talk about cottonmouth.

I've never had one that was anywhere near the pinnacle of Epicurean delights. I'd rather eat a snake or a rat.

The 4 fingers of death. Easily the worst MRE.

I always liked the beef with mushrooms and the wild rice pilaf that came with it.

a reply to: EyesOpenMouthShut

Thanks for the link. Some of the choices sound damn good.

I can say i have not had the pleasure yet. Mine were circa 94.

How about the snacks included? My favorites were the stale skittles, turkey stick jerky, commando protein bar and a must have with the crackers were jalapeño cheese spread.

Least favorite once again the poppyseed or regular pound cake, it's like eating a roll of paper towels. Lol

Yeah the coffee packs are missed, I guess since the canteen cups are long gone.

a reply to: HardCorps

Best one is the pork sausage in gravy.

Freakin delicious.

Beef Enchilada. Crumble up the crackers in the package. Dump into enchilada pouch. Add cheeze flavored paste. Stir well. Hands down my favorite. And it felt like the most filling. Usually didn't want to eat the rest of the day after one of those.

Of course, one too many enchilada MRE's in a row and you will be hating life. Serious bubble guts.

I had one of those a couple of years ago. We laughed like hell trying to stuff the dinner back into the box after adding water to the heater pack. It tasted like a cheap TV dinner, all right for an emergency I suppose but I sure wouldn't want to live on those. Why not just buy a hundred McD burgers and shrink wrap them, they will last longer than a MRE. Heck, you don't even have to shrinkwrap them.

After Katrina, I ate more than my fair share of MRE's. If I had to pick a favorite, I'd go with the salsa chicken. Anything with beef was almost unbearable though, the synthetic taste was overwhelming and hard to stomach.

All I remember from eating MRE's in the military was that I would eat everything. Even stuff I did not like, because I was always hungry, lol. Especially during basic training. Always hungry. And I never heated them at all, as it just wasted time. We did not get very long to eat. I don't know if they are supposed to give you a certain amount of time or whatever, but I did not want to be the last one. Nope. Purposefully singling myself out seemed stupid during basic. That was when I ate the most MRE's anyway. I cannot recall all of the different types I've eaten, but I do recall liking the raviolis, and there was like this chicken pasta stuff that I thought was pretty good. I never cared for those large cracker-like things, but like I said, I ate everything. I've always hated any type of nuts as well, and occasionally I would get one of those packets of assorted nuts and would eat them all. So looking back I know I have must have been extremely hungry at the time. I also remember some kind of stew type stuff that I liked. Don't know what it was. It had meat in it.

As a 5 year vet of the Marine Corps ('03-'08), I've had my fair share of MREs, both in the states and overseas. As my father was in the Air Force, and we went hiking alot, I've also had plenty of the old style ones as well. The fingers of death (frankfurturs), were probably one of the worst I ever had (they were the old dark-brown style MREs). My favorite old-style was the ham steak. My favoriate items, though, was the dehydrated fruit packet (like a big block of dehydrated fruit, yum!), and also the brownie.
Among the newer, tan packaged MREs I prefer the chicken terriyaki or the beefcake. The chocolate mint poundcake was also pretty good (think that was an old-style MRE?).
However, the best of the best MREs I had EVER had though, are the special cold-weather MREs (in a white package).

Oh, and Chicklets. I miss the little boxes of Chicklets, LOL.