Mum! Dad! Don't touch it, it's MRE-vil!
Jan. 16th, 2006 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
murakoziThat's kind of a bad title for this post, since I rather like MRE's, but I just couldn't resist.
Anyhoo, for those who don't know, MRE is the acronym for "Meal: Ready to Eat," which is what the US military types eat out in the field when there's no mess hall/canteen/whatever available. Anyone who's ever had C-Rations knows that their replacement, the MRE, is a huge upgrade. While not exactly fine cuisine, the food in 'em isn't half bad. Even the worst entrees I've had from MRE's haven't been any worse than a tv dinner or Chef Boy-Ar-Dee canned product.
MRE's consist of a big heavy plasticy type pouch with a a number of smaller pouches with the various meal items in them. There'll be a cardboard box inside that contains another pouch with the entree, some sort of 'side dish,' a snack item, powdered drink, sometimes a dessert, usually some crackers and peanut butter, and an accessory kit (spork, salt, pepper, gum, etc). The things are intentionally high calorie, since the assumption is that the soldier in the field is engaging in a lot of physical exertion and needs all the endergy he/she can get.
Back onto the original point of this post; a few years back, I ordered a number of MRE's. There are 3 companies that make MRE's for the US military and one of them has a 'civilian' company that sells any excess inventory they have to the general public. The only difference between the military and 'civilian' versions is the big outer pouch. I ordered them after one of the big hurricanes that came up the coast knocked out my power for about 5 days. Kinda just figured it'd be good to have 'em on hand for emergencies or camping or whatever. The things have a shelf life of 5 years at least and I've had the original ones I ordered for a few years.
So flash forward to Saturday. I spent the day feeling completely exhausted, with a sinus headache that'd been coming and going since Friday night. I also felt absolutely no hunger despite not having eaten anything all day. Somewhere after 9pm I realized I'd really better make myself eat something. Not having gone to the grocery recently, I didn't have much that I could prepare and eat quickly, so I dug out one of the MRE's. It wasn't bad, and getting food into myself helped quite a bit.
Aaaaanyway, as I mentioned earlier, the things are designed for someone who's being really active. I sure wasn't all that physically active on Saturday, so all I ate was the entree and the snack. This particular MRE's 'dessert' was a package of raisin/nut trail mix which I brought into work today to snack upon. When I dumped the contents of the little pouch out, along with the raisins and nuts came a little packet of some sort of dessicant. These packets are in many of the pouches in MRE's and I'm guessing they keep the moisture inside at some desireable level so the food'll last in there. They're made by a company in NY and are called Fresh Pax.
A couple thoughts occurred to me when I was looking at the packet:
1) It's a bad idea to have a product name in a font with a fairly rounded lower case 'a' with a tail that blends into the 'x' next to it. At first glance it looked like the product name was 'Fresh Pox.' Mmm! Plaguey goodness in every bite!
2) When you make a product that's not supposed to be ingested, it's probably a good idea NOT to choose bright red and blue lettering that makes it look like the prize packet from inside a Crackerjack box. Assuming some of these things end up in non-English speaking countries, folks here might not know that whatever powder inside isn't something to be snarfing down. Granted, there is one of those 'circle with a line through it' graphics that's supposed to indicate you'er not supposed to eat the contents, but it's small and looks more like it's saying 'Do Not Suck Your Thumb.' Acutally, looking at it again, it looks more like it's saying "Do Not Stick a Duck's head in Your Mouth" or "Do Not French Kiss a Goose."
3) Related to #2, print the multilingual "Do Not Eat" warnings in a font somewhat larger than the manufacturer's address.
Yes, it's Monday and a slow day at work. Can you tell?
EDIT:
Here's a picture of one of the little packets. Yes, my cellphone has a truly lousy camera on it.
http://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture0044pj.jpg
Anyhoo, for those who don't know, MRE is the acronym for "Meal: Ready to Eat," which is what the US military types eat out in the field when there's no mess hall/canteen/whatever available. Anyone who's ever had C-Rations knows that their replacement, the MRE, is a huge upgrade. While not exactly fine cuisine, the food in 'em isn't half bad. Even the worst entrees I've had from MRE's haven't been any worse than a tv dinner or Chef Boy-Ar-Dee canned product.
MRE's consist of a big heavy plasticy type pouch with a a number of smaller pouches with the various meal items in them. There'll be a cardboard box inside that contains another pouch with the entree, some sort of 'side dish,' a snack item, powdered drink, sometimes a dessert, usually some crackers and peanut butter, and an accessory kit (spork, salt, pepper, gum, etc). The things are intentionally high calorie, since the assumption is that the soldier in the field is engaging in a lot of physical exertion and needs all the endergy he/she can get.
Back onto the original point of this post; a few years back, I ordered a number of MRE's. There are 3 companies that make MRE's for the US military and one of them has a 'civilian' company that sells any excess inventory they have to the general public. The only difference between the military and 'civilian' versions is the big outer pouch. I ordered them after one of the big hurricanes that came up the coast knocked out my power for about 5 days. Kinda just figured it'd be good to have 'em on hand for emergencies or camping or whatever. The things have a shelf life of 5 years at least and I've had the original ones I ordered for a few years.
So flash forward to Saturday. I spent the day feeling completely exhausted, with a sinus headache that'd been coming and going since Friday night. I also felt absolutely no hunger despite not having eaten anything all day. Somewhere after 9pm I realized I'd really better make myself eat something. Not having gone to the grocery recently, I didn't have much that I could prepare and eat quickly, so I dug out one of the MRE's. It wasn't bad, and getting food into myself helped quite a bit.
Aaaaanyway, as I mentioned earlier, the things are designed for someone who's being really active. I sure wasn't all that physically active on Saturday, so all I ate was the entree and the snack. This particular MRE's 'dessert' was a package of raisin/nut trail mix which I brought into work today to snack upon. When I dumped the contents of the little pouch out, along with the raisins and nuts came a little packet of some sort of dessicant. These packets are in many of the pouches in MRE's and I'm guessing they keep the moisture inside at some desireable level so the food'll last in there. They're made by a company in NY and are called Fresh Pax.
A couple thoughts occurred to me when I was looking at the packet:
1) It's a bad idea to have a product name in a font with a fairly rounded lower case 'a' with a tail that blends into the 'x' next to it. At first glance it looked like the product name was 'Fresh Pox.' Mmm! Plaguey goodness in every bite!
2) When you make a product that's not supposed to be ingested, it's probably a good idea NOT to choose bright red and blue lettering that makes it look like the prize packet from inside a Crackerjack box. Assuming some of these things end up in non-English speaking countries, folks here might not know that whatever powder inside isn't something to be snarfing down. Granted, there is one of those 'circle with a line through it' graphics that's supposed to indicate you'er not supposed to eat the contents, but it's small and looks more like it's saying 'Do Not Suck Your Thumb.' Acutally, looking at it again, it looks more like it's saying "Do Not Stick a Duck's head in Your Mouth" or "Do Not French Kiss a Goose."
3) Related to #2, print the multilingual "Do Not Eat" warnings in a font somewhat larger than the manufacturer's address.
Yes, it's Monday and a slow day at work. Can you tell?
EDIT:
Here's a picture of one of the little packets. Yes, my cellphone has a truly lousy camera on it.
http://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture0044pj.jpg
