Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/10/collector-eats-wwii-era-ration.html
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Joking aside, I’ve taken (modern) MREs on multi-day hikes and while not exactly gourmet eating, they sure beat a diet of protein bars.
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“Meal Ready to Eat - three lies for the price of one!”
The cookies in ours (30-odd years ago) were bulletproof.
But let’s face it, if you’re hungry, you’ll eat anything. With the possible exception of the alleged “rice pudding with candied fruit”.
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The MREs that I had 30 years ago were great! Sure, some things required soaking before eating (cookies & crackers) but they were designed that way. Loved the ham patties, and the freeze-dried fruit was awesome!
This video made me very sad though, to have the full collectability and historicalness of it destroyed for a wee bit of YouTube fame. What really killed me was the utter ridiculousness of the “the package will just be destroyed because of the melting candy” statement. FGS, it’s survived in remarkable condition for 70+ years already, just keep it dry!
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I know the Army was still eating WWII rations during the Vietnam war, and that seemed a little too past the expiration date.
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Modern MREs are fairly decent as long as one doesn’t cheap out too much. I went hiking with a friend and his kids some years ago and we brought along his MREs and i thought everything we ate was damn good.
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Yeah, not letting them sit for seventy years helps a lot. 
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This guy ate a tinned beef ration from the Boer War and he’s still alive.
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The Army Air Force was packing fudge!
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I ate WWII era rations as a boy scout in the 1960s and 70s many times. Even more Vietnam era ones (pro tip: eating nothing by K rations will give you world-class constipation).
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There is an entire genre of youtube videos like this. While I have no interest in eating food canned that long ago, I do find it interesting to see what they issued as food and how it has changed over time.
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I pack tortillas, sausage, cheese, celery, apples, and even eggs if the weather is cool. Stuff that tends to hold up at room temperature for a couple of days and can fit in my pack is a nice treat for the first day or two or a hike. I can’t really handle the sodium in an MRE. And people tend to either complain that MREs give them constipation or diarrhea, and neither is ideal on a hike. (I once abandoned a through hike and had to arrange for a pickup)
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Now I don’t worry so much if one of the Indian food packs on my back shelf is a month over the expiry. (That rarely happens. I use them too often and they’re in a retort boil-bag, same format as Canadian IMPs, and the year-plus shelf life is probably understated.) ~$2 CAN.
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My experience says otherwise. Someone gave me a couple MREs and I thought they were pretty horrible, but still edible. Certainly didn’t beat standard camping food of instant mac-n-cheese or other cheap noodle dishes. And the MRE’s I got were kind of heavy, not ideal for carrying 15 miles a day through hot and humid trails.
Yes, all good choices. Summer sausage or pepperoni, hard cheese, breads that hold up in the pack like tortillas or bagels, and candy, lots of candy. I have packed boiled eggs (always eaten in the first couple days), and pre-baked potatoes in foil.
I was given some EMS or REI instant meals that were fancy, and really tasty, but seemed to take more fuel to cook than any common supermarket noodle dish.
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That’s right, it’s stupid suicide week here on the Cowboy Wally Show!
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I’m subscribed to this guy’s channel, and I’ve thought this before. The counter argument is that 274,000 people have seen this video in the past 4 days. That’s 274,000 people who learned the ration exists and saw what was inside it, with the added benefit of Steve’s commentary from his vast experience with military rations. Compare that with storing it intact as an afterthought in a museum or collection somewhere. I feel like this is preferable, but I understand that not everyone will feel that way.
He makes an effort to keep as many pieces from these rations as possible for “display” purposes. My guess is that eventually there will be a museum exhibit somewhere.
Here’s German chocolate from 1942:
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Experimenting with dodgy canned goods seems like a dangerously plausible way to meet nature’s most glamorizing obligate anaerobe under conditions that do not favor the away team.
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Yep, i’ve tossed a few things because i didn’t want to be the one idiot to die or land in the hospital because i just had to taste or eat that dodgy looking food stuff. Kudos to this one person’s successful channel, i appreciate the hustle for sure but that’s not a roulette i’m willing to take a chance on.
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In some videos he mentions a bit of numbness on his tongue after some stuff. No thanks!
I guess they’re good training films for that Mad Max future, when you find a cache of dubious cans.
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