Homemade MRE Feasibility ???

[slakline]

Would it be practical, cost effective, possible to make up your own MRE's using a Vacuum sealer (Foodsaver or ??)?

If so, what would be a realistic shelf life be and what food items or recipies would work best ?

Supplies of bottled water, dehydrated foods, powdered milk, canned meat and vegatble , trail mixes are always in abundant supply in my pantry, but I'm more interested in a portable complete food supply for emergency scenarios.

Any links or book suggestions would be most helpful and much appreciated.

[cycle_rcr]

Certain kinds of wet food in a no oxygen enviornment will turn into poison. Botulism. It's deadly. Canned/packed stuff is sterilized then sealed. The Botulism bacteria that makes the poison is killed in the process.

Some stuff has built in preservatives that prevent botulism from growing. Very acidy, and very sugary.

For DIY, I suggest staying with dried or home canned. I think (RKI help) the bagged preserved wet food is processed with radiation to sterilize.

If you're interested in cured meat, there is a book called sausage making and meat curing by Rytas Kutek. Very good.

Also, see butcher and packer supply on the internet for extremely modest cost bulk packed meat curing stuff like curing salts and sausage casings.

www.butcher-packer.com

[gunplumber]

While it doesn't address your question exactly, I've repacked MREs.

One of the problems with the MREs is their bulk. They are well protected for rough handling, but in a more controlled environment, the amount of packaging and bulk is annoying. What I would do is to strip all the excess cardboard packaging from them, and then combine 3 meals into 2 piles. Adding in extra small items like the parmesan cheese and red pepper packs from the pizza place, black pepper packs, a fork, extra napkin and wet naps. Then reseal them in commercial plastic/heat seal.

I cut the overall weight slightly, and the bulk by 40%. Ditched the stuff I don't like and now have backback rations where I will eat the whole thing.

One thing I learned from Y2K is DON"T STOCKPILE FOOD YOU WOULDN"T EAT ANYWAY.

Because when it comes time to rotate the food, there is no desire to eat it.

[Temp]

http://home.ripway.com/2004-10/184026/dintymoore.jpg

[L/FN]

Very limited time right now to experiment with the packaging, but have been buying and playing with the food side aspect.

#1 Figure alot of stuff will need packaged up right before field use.
#2 Alot of items will need field cooked. You can buy powdered eggs, soup, etc and take the powder to the filed, but you can't really cook/prepare the food then bag it up to take with you.
#3 You may have to bag up a number of componants seperately to make one meal. Example: Stew. You may get field meat or take Jerky in a bag, dried onion in a bag, dried carrot, potato, whatever in another bag. Try combo recipes at home so you can figure how much of each componant you need for so many people. If you by yourself, no problem. If your with 3 people, better to package up enough food per bag for the 3 then each person have there own little meal. Saves on packaging bulk. Will work unless you have to split up. I'm sure each person will have some simple individual meals as well.

Things I have been thinking about or messing with: Dried soup mixes or noodles, Dried fruits, grains and trail mix/ cereals, Oatmeal or Cream of wheat.
Biscuit mix, pancake mix of the just add water type. Powdered eggs. Dried instant potatoes of many flavor's are available. The stores now carry un-refrigerated tuna and probably other items in foil bags rather than cans. And don't forget hot chocolate, cider, fruit drinks, powdered protein drinks.

Larry

[Plain George]

I thought he was asking about MRE...Meal Ready to Eat.
Not taking the whole kitchen in the field to COOK meals.

[Ssarge]

MRE's packaging is the secret to the sucess. The mutiple layers sandwiched together are very tough and can take the heat that is used after the packaging process to kill bacteria. Your plastic would not be up to the heat levels, amount of time at heat required to sanatize it for long term preservation. You can always do the old fashioned "canning" method with Mason Jars. Very bulky and fragile though. Not good for on the move obviously. But OK for at home.
Thanks to all of the damn hurricanes we have had in the past year, I have quite a large supply of fresh MRE's on hand. Along with bulk canned goods, I think I'm pretty good to go.

[green57]

MRE's are not treated with heat to preserve them. Cycle_rcr is correct, they are irradiated. Not something you would have the means to do, or want to try at home. Green57

[macvsog]

What if you use a dehydrator (food) and a heat sealer with a vacuum? Would that not work?

Also the website to everything you ever wanted to know about MRE"s:

www.mreinfo.com/mres.html

[AGC]

Originally posted by green57
MRE's are not treated with heat to preserve them. Cycle_rcr is correct, they are irradiated. Not something you would have the means to do, or want to try at home. Green57


One of the Discovery Channel-type cable channels had a tour of the factory in (I think it was) Indiana that produces many/most of the MRE entrees. They're heated after sealing, to cook the contents and sterilize them.

No irradiation involved.

[MikeC]

One thing if you do try doing this at home, write down in detail your ingredients and method of preserving the food. That way, IF you get deathly ill when you test the food in 15-24 months, your family can show the ER docs what you consumed and they can figure out what toxins may be killing you.

[falfan#1]

AGC is correct, they are heated in a giant "retort cooker", basically a walk in pressure cooker. Actually looks a lot like a big bank vault door on the front. No irradiation is used on them, at least after they are packed. Some of the raw ingredients may have been irradiated before they were mixed, some foodstuffs are irradiated these days.

[L/FN]

Originally posted by Plain George
I thought he was asking about MRE...Meal Ready to Eat.
Not taking the whole kitchen in the field to COOK meals.

All you need for most field cooking is a canteen cup. Take a mess kit along if you want to carry the weight.
I figured the poster was talking about being in the field awhile on foot. If your going for a day hike in the park, just pack yourself a couple of PB & J sandwiches!!!
If you going to be a week or two in the field, you can't carry enough MRE's, etc to feed yourself. Hence the canteen cup and alot of field expertise in fishing, trapping, wild edible plants and COOKING!!! I know I won't go hungry!

Larry

[L/FN]

Originally posted by slakline


Supplies of bottled water, dehydrated foods, powdered milk, canned meat and vegatble , trail mixes are always in abundant supply in my pantry, but I'm more interested in a portable complete food supply for emergency scenarios.

Any links or book suggestions would be most helpful and much appreciated.

OK, maybe slakline is not going into the wilderness for a year, but if he's staying at "home" during the emergency he could just use the pantry. Evidently he may be on foot or a vehicle at best. If he's in a vehicle, he should have a small kitchen set up in a .50cal can or maybe a 20mm can if he has a family.

Larry

[Plain George]

Kinda off the subject but, talking about canteen cups, the best field cooking unit similar to using a canteen cup is a set from some EU country that has a fry pan, cooking pot, pot stand and a very good alcohol stove. It all fits together and is light weight. Alcohol makes a great fire, also a fire starter.

[MD3C]

A friend got some current production MRE components from Major Surplus and made up his own. I think that he doubled up his main entree, added the rest and vacuum sealed them for a nice set up.
M

[gunplumber]

I spent yesterday working at a cannery packing humanitarian aid food. Very interesting. Learned a lot about long-term food storage. Learned how tough it is in AZ with our temperatures. Looks like I have to have a cellar about 30 feet deep to keep a constant 70 degrees in my area. Other parts of the country can maintain 52 degrees without going as deep. Thats a lot of digging. Gotta find another way.

this cannery was doing high acid foods (easier bacteria control when working with volunteers). I persoanlly boxed 3 pallets of peach preserves. Thats alot of peaches! And a lot of sugar. Learned how to use a a Brix meter spectrograph to QC sugar content. I am not sure if the brix scale is a PERCENT sugar or just an arbitrary number for comparison, but it appears these preserves were around 65% sugar. No wonder I like it so much! I used to save my MRE jellly for consumption on long road marches - tear the end and suck a bit at a time for energy boost.

Also spent the other half the day turning 2500 pounds of flour in 25 pound bags into 4.8 pounds of flour in a #10 can. tedious and I looked like a snowman.

kindof funny aside. If you don't have a beard, you don't have to wear a beard net, but if you don't have any hair - as in bald - you still have to wear a hair net. go figure.

Anyway, there are these little packets that look like dessicant packages but they suck up oxygen. Used in the dry packs (beans, legumes, tabars, grains). Supposed to increase shelf life.

I think getting one of those machines for putting can lids on would be usefull. They also had softpacks, which was basically a heavy foil heat sealed pouch. Looks like that would be a good way to cut weight and bulk, although more fragile.

Reminds me of the LRRP rations. Instead of 3 MREs, we'd sometimes get 2 LRRP rations (or 3 for 2 days) - they were freeze-dried so took a lot of water. And the "entree" was a stew usually - as in all the food in one container rather than several side orders. But they had john wayne bars which I loved - a hard coconut cookie bar covered with a non-melting chocolate, and they came with TWO cocos or coffees.

MUCH Lighter weight if you are in a high water environment.

[W.E.G.]

Originally posted by Temp
http://home.ripway.com/2004-10/184026/dintymoore.jpg


Ah yes!

Great minds think alike.

In fact, that rekindles my recollection of the Shaggy Hoarde Expetition.

We took a bunch of DMBS on a camping trip when I was a lad sometime around 1977. We figgered our large supply of DMBS would get us through the weekend. Only problem is, we didn't get a weather report before setting out on our retreat. I rained like hell on Friday night. So we ate cold DMBS out of cans in the woods, in the dark, in the rain, with no campfire. We eventually got the tent pitched - in the dark. In the morning it was still raining, and our campsite was flooded, as was the tent and my rifles on the floor of the tent. We drained the water out of the rifles, and we set up the remaining supply of DMBS on a soggy log next to where there was supposed to be a campfire.

We shot the hell out of the DMBS - which was very satisfying considering the circumstances. It lightend our load considerably with the depletion of the heavy cans, and several boxes of not-so-heavy, but unneeded ammunition. Then we trudged home, with our ears ringing, in the rain some number of miles, since our ride was not scheduled to arrive until Sunday, and it wasn't likely that anybody was going to stop by the road to pick up a gang of soaking wet suspects carrying rifles.

From now on I'll just stay home - with my DMBS, dry and in the pantry. Come what may out there on the road (or in "the woods") with the Shaggy Hoarde. I'm bugging-IN.

[hardrada]

O.K. this is not necessarily using your sealer, but...
Since you said "portable", think of things like:

ramen noodles (cheap and you can eat them dry...almost like eating a big cracker)

a good beef jerky (store bought or home made)

granola bars

You can always raid Micky D's or Burger king for packets of ketchup, mustard, mayo. If you are a chili head like me, Chick Filet usually has packets of Tabasco sauce. Other fast food joints will have packets of salt and pepper for your kits.

a nice addition might be powdered drink mixes.

Give me a day or two to (hopefully relocate some of the sites where I found this info).

[hardrada]

Sorry, but all the old links are dead or not working properly.

Even Frugal squirrel is giving the "page cannot be displayed" page.

I'll keep on looking though.

Basically, think dried foods...soups, veggies, fruits.
In order to keep the weight down try to avoid canned foods.

[TFA303]

macvsog's inclusion of this link:
www.mreinfo.com/mres.html

is bumpworthy in and of itself. Great site; had everything I wanted to know abour MREs.

[Auslander]

Hmm … as cheap and good tasting, long storing as Mountain House, Alpineaire and other commercial packed foods are the only thing I'd roll my own on would be dried sausages and jerky or dried fruits.

Mark is right on the LRRP rations. The best thing about them was the bars. With all freeze dried stuff water is a problem. I can find more water and squeeze it through the Katadyn to clean it up on the trail.

The ‘food supplement’ bars shakes are another option. Not the ‘diet bars’ or ‘Slimfast’ stuff the ones they feed to folks to fatten them up. They don’t keep well in the heat though.

For really long term storage in a cache, canned goods are the way to go. You don’t want canned as BOB item because they are heavy. Mountain House makes stuff in #10 cans for caches. Mormons have a good idea with the’you need 1 year of food for you and yours in the house at all times’ plan. You buy a little extra every payday and date it with a sharpie. Eat the oldest dates first.

Unless you’re really hard up for cash shell the $15 for professionally made foods. Giving your self a case of food poisoning in the middle of a ‘bad event’ ain’t the way to live through it.

[mosbysmen]

this is one of the best articles i have seen on homebrew m.r.e type food

http://www.savvysurvivor.com/high_speed_low_drag_food_for_the.htm