USA

Welcome to part two of the MRE showdown where we focus on US meals ready to eat.  These are individually packed meals rather than a full day in a package.

These were also purchased from Amazon and depending on where you buy them can cost as much or as little as 40% for three meals as the Russian ration pack.  I did like being able to read what the meals were so there weren’t any big surprises on the entrees.

First up was the Chicken Pesto Pasta.  You can see below the contents packaged and then unpackaged with the associated accessories.

The contents of this meal were the chicken pesto pasta, Italian bread sticks, cheese spread, patriotic cookies, cinnamon bun, lemon lime drink mix, powdered red pepper, coffee and accessories, toilet paper, matches, moist wipe, gum and the chemical heater.

I used the supplied chemical heater to warm up the entrée and it worked very well.  The contents are that visually appealing but when I added some of the ground red pepper it tasted fairly decent. The chicken looked and tasted like chicken and the pasta wasn’t mushy and there was a pesto flavor so it lived up to the billing but didn’t really exceed expectations.  The Italian bread was soft, dry and broke up easily.  It had some specks of herbs and made a decent platform for the cheese spread.  Oh the cheese spread.  It was essentially cheez whiz in a pouch instead of a can so if you like that you’d love this.  The patriotic cookies were like sugar cookies in shapes as the name says; Statue of Liberty head & torch, Uncle Sam’s face and hat, the flag and the letters USA.  They were tasty.  Last but certainly not least on the food front was the cinnamon bun.  Another casualty of preservation by limiting moisture.  It had a good flavor but was very dense and dry with a very thin liquid layer of cinnamon in the middle.  The drink mix made a Gatorade like drink that wasn’t bad and provided some electrolytes and carbs.  The coffee was standard instant coffee, nothing notable.  Overall I’d say this was a pretty passable meal not something I’d want daily but certainly something I would complain about if I was out in the field.

Next up on the hit parade was the cheese tortellini in tomato sauce.  In the spirit of balance I decided to try a vegetarian option because they exist.  As you can see from the picture it also wasn’t going to win any prized for presentation.

The meal had the tortellini, soda crackers, peanut butter, an energy bar, mango-peach applesauce, grape drink mix, the accessory pack with hot sauce and powdered raspberry drink mix and the highlight of the MRE and hearkening to their roots a pack of M&M’s.

The tortellini tasted just like you’d get from a can in the store and benefitted greatly from the addition of the packet of hot sauce, which was from Louisiana was not Tabasco.  The crackers were a bit like the bread from the previous meal in that they were dry and fragile but didn’t have snap like a crispy saltine cracker does.  They were passable with though when covered in the peanut butter which had a nice peanutty flavor.  The mango-peach applesauce was a sweet mush that had a vaguely mango taste if you didn’t think about it too much.  The energy bar was one of those chewy sort of chocolatey bars that you feel like probably had some other kind of good for you stuff but didn’t care bad enough to check the label.  It was typical for its type.  The grape drink tasted like an artificially grape flavored Gatorade wannabe.  The M&M’s were of course melt in your mouth, not in your hand delicious.  Final assessment of this one is that even if it was vegetarian it was very edible and honestly quite filling.

The final entry in the US MRE lineup was Mexican Style Chicken Stew.

Although it did not look pretty it was my favorite of the 3 meals.  It had a surprising amount of chicken and it was spicy enough to justify the Mexican label.  In addition to the stew there were “vegetable crackers”, Cheddar cheese pretzels, cheese spread, applesauce with raspberry puree, a lemon lime beverage powder and oh yeah! M&Ms again.  The vegetable crackers were dry and a bit odd but I crumbled half in the stew and cheesed the other half so they were edible.  The cheddar cheese pretzels were simply cheese Combos.  The applesauce did have a faint raspberry flavor but otherwise it was unremarkable.  Of course the M&Ms need no additional detail.  It was a very edible meal that definitely fills you up.

In the final tally I have to give the win to the US MREs for taste and overall quality.  If you’re looking to grab something for your next camping trip grab some MREs and remember to pack out your garbage.