Making Your Homemade MRE.

Hey now I'm intrigued ... gonna try and put one together when I next do groceries. There were mini peanut butter and vegemite things at Coles last I looked

Can you still get tuna in pouches?

Like that person, I'm not going to add dehydrated water or pouches of water though

Let us know how you go - what you put in it, size, weight, photos if possible.

And Yes, you can still get Tuna in pouches.

You’ve probably heard the term Meal, Ready-to-Eat, or MRE for short. It’s a term coined by the U.S. Military in the 1970’s when the armed services recognized the need to provide troops in the field with a variety of nutritionally balanced meals that were relatively easy to carry, had a long shelf-life, and could be eaten in remote areas where no additional cooking supplies were available.


Yes...  This term does bring back a lot of memories from days as a young man....  And about a million nightmares that rarely come and go to this day.  Far enough on that track.  

A number of years ago I was given a 24 hour civilian MRE, a disaster relief, humanitarian type kit.  Possibly US Red Cross, but being a "humanitarian" meals that translates to nothing with religious objections..  I presume meaning Kosher and Halal compliant.   

The box was 500 cubic inches and contained all common brand name items.  For instance, Campbells soup, Nabisco saltine crackers, Oreo cookies.  The packaging was all individual serving types.  Like the crackers wrapped like you get with soup in a restaurant.

With this all in mind, my goal has been to make "homemade MRE" from all common grocery store items, within the 500 cubic inch limit, more or less.   So all you would need is your 24 hour meals, a camp fire, and pot for boiling water.  I WILL NOT exist without coffee, tea or both during the day.  For instance, breakfast being a tin of tuna, package of 2 toaster pastries, and half a package of Oreo cookies, 2 cups coffee.  

Three things to go along with this. An adult size college back pack, adequate water for the day, and a personal kit.  The reusable personal kit is a 4L zip lock bag with spoon, fork, butter knife, can opener, fire starter materials, half roll toilet paper.  All making up about 20 cubic inches or so.  I also stuff in extra gloves and socks as that is important to me.  A quality adult college back pack runs about 800 to 900 cubic inches.  The bulk of these items are for cheap at thrift stores and yard sales.  

Proviso.. I'm an old guy now and DO NOT intend this for walking off long distances in the bush.  I do all my testing at the campfire pit with the picnic table available to sit at, and the HOBO stove to boil water on.   But you get the general idea of the foundation of this effort.  More details later. 

No... No picture of the disaster relief MRE. Just what comes to mind from sorting through it. Have seen reviews of a number of military MRE from around the world. Quite different. A guy in about my age from the Ukrane worked in my machine shop and would bring different packages of things. Not always sure where he was able to find some of these items or if he was getting care packages from Russia. Interesting things like a sort of corned beef stew in a can and such items.

What I remember from military MRE is them yelling at you to eat the whole thing. As they would "bind" you up, and somewhere in the contents it would keep you "regular"..... To much information ??