2 British Army Ration packs would come close to filling up your shoe box but at 4000 calories each unless you are mountaineering or similar you could easily split them between two for a couple of days, the food is good quality and better than the current American equivalent in many people's opinions. I would fill up the remaining space with various dried fruits and jerky, I love both of those for picking at on a trail or even a long drive.
This is definitely a neat idea. As others have pointed out tho, it could vary depending on what size shoe box your talking about. So maybe if a specific size was determined or another common container of similar size was used. Similar to how a lot of folks use Altoids Tins. It also makes a big difference as to what your tastes are and where your located (e.g. USA or Europe). Myself, I'm not too picky and a can make do with MREs just fine. As for cost, I got lucky a while back on Ebay and got a case fairly cheap. However, I'll admit that the Entrees are not for everybody. I'd second the suggestion of some canned meat (tuna, salmon, spam) instead. Also, you could probably get some ideas or use some of the sides from an MRE. The foil-pack MRE fruit is just like canned to me. But it'd be lighter and probably take up less space. I think the cookies and crackers, with peanut butter, are pretty good. I think somewhere else on this forum there was a discussion on "HardTack". Anyone have a good idea for Cheese & Crackers that'd last a decent enough time? Never tried the MRE Pound Cakes or Brownies but those'd make nice desserts. Oooh how about "Backpackers chocolate"? The kind covered in Wax, think I saw it on the show "Unwrapped". Although ya said not to worry a lot about drinks, I'd still love to throw in a couple Instant Coffees, Tea, or Hot Cocoa packets for the picnic aspect. Even Tang/Juice packets if ya don't want a hot drink. I'm also a big fan of Trail Mix. Any way ya go you'd have to rotate stuff out eventually, so be sure to put an expiration date on it. I'd also suggest putting it in all in Plastic containers to keep pests at bay.
Oh no, yet another board/forum for me to lurk on, gather information, and drool about stuff I can't afford. :brickwall: I Forgot that Tuna, Chicken, Spam, and stuff is now easily available in bags at the Supermarkets. Probably because I always seem to notice Cans being on sale and so much cheaper. Somehow I forgot to mention Oatmeal as well, and that was one of the first things I thought of too! Good idea to Vacuum seal everything together like that, but that seems like a system that would require some buy-in cost. Never looked into it myself tho.
A lot of great idea's. Most of the stuff mentioned is already in your cabnet, just rotate your emergency kit. I would add a couple of packs of hot chocolate mix.
in an emergency im going to walmart to get any and all vienna sausages and the red pickled ones in the glass jars. thats all ineed but if i ever did need it I have abunch of MREs at my disposal. (the jalapeno cheese spread is 2 spicy)
The French Army ones (RCIR) sometimes have pate in them. And not just chicken liver pate, but ham, rabbit, and hare. If you're going to do this, you can do it in style. ;D
This is a great topic and good place for me to add my 2 cents. My medium ALICE pack moves from truck to truck with me and rides with me daily. It is more EDM (Every Day Mobile) than EDC. I have emergency provisions vacuum packed and secured in the small, inner hanging pocket of the pack. If this all fits in this pocket they would easily fit in a regular shoebox. This was a good opportunity to update clothing for the changing season and check food for approaching expiration dates. You will not see any cans - too heavy. Everything is either foil packed or dry. As shown this is about 20% of the pack volume but about 75% of the pack weight. 2 - Mountain House - Chili Mac & Beef 6 - Lipton Cup of Soup - 3 Tomato & 3 Chicken Noodle 2 - Chicken of the Sea Pink Salmon 2 - SPAM singles 6 - Cliff Bars 1 - Idahoan Mashed potatoes 1 - 7oz dried apricots 1 - Apple Blueberry Granola 10 - Herb Ox Chicken broth 12 - Vita Splash Raspberry Lemonade drink mix 3 - Cliff Shot lemonade electrolyte replacement drink 12 - instant hot chocolate mix 2 - McCormick Italian style spaghetti sauce mix 2lbs - angel hair pasta salt, pepper, granulated garlic, cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper How many of us can survive 24 hours without CAFFINE?? I also carry 12 - Starbucks Italian roast extra-bold instant coffee packets. I carry a minimum amount of water plus an Aquamira Frontier Pro filter For heating I carry an ultralight, ultra-small, alcohol backpack stove from MiniBull Designs. Tinny has a great selection of super compact stoves. The alcohol burns hot and cooks fast. This is a system I have been working on for years. One of my service trucks actually has a microwave oven and a 3500 watt generator.
Things that don't require water or cooking: Clif bars Gorp/trail mix Durable crackers/pilot bread Peanut butter Honey Things that do require water or cooking: Tea or coffee Hot chocolate or instant spiced cider mix Instant soups: I go to the store and buy the kind that come in cardboard cups. My personal favorite brands are Health Valley and Dr. McDougall's. At home, I empty each soup mix into its own zip-top bag and write the amount of water needed to rehydrate it and any other directions on the outside of the bag with a Sharpie. Most soups only take about 1.25 to 1.5 cups of water to rehydrate. Minute rice Couscous One recipe of Black Bear Hummus from the Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin' cookbook, which tastes good warm and goes well on crackers: 1 7-oz box Fantastic Foods Instant Black Beans 1/4 C sesame seeds 1 tsp lemon pepper 1/4 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp onion powder 1/4 tsp cumin Mix all dry ingredients. Divide into four 1/2-cup portions and put each portion in its own zip-top bag. Use 1/2 cup of boiling water per serving to rehydrate and let stand for at least five minutes. If you have oil, you can add 1 tsp per serving, but it's optional. The book recommends adding the water in the bag in the morning, kneading the bag to mix, and then eating this at lunchtime, but like I said, it tastes good warm and it is VERY filling.
Apparently they stopped issuing a wine ration sometime in the late 90's with their field rations. Seems like a mistake to me.
So far, TacticalChef, Knifeguy's DYI MREs post, and Towanda's ideas are most in line with what I was thinking, although I have seen a lot of ideas I really like! Posts that mention websites or foreign (to me) MREs, etc. lost points on the 'readily available' criteria but that does not invalidate the ideas offered. When I said not to worry a lot about drinks, it was just because most drink options are so packable and well-known that I was not worried about them. I can jam the packets or bags in any little corners. I am a bit surprised that no one mentioned a popular 'all weather' chocolate- M&Ms. If I remember the story right, the 'melts in your mouth not in your hand' coating was designed for hot climates. Cheap, tasty, easy to pack- who needs the fancy stuff?
Of course! Seems so obvious now. I recall seeing something on t.v. about how they become known nation-wide when they were used for troops rations during WWII. In with the old C-Rats, a.k.a. the grandfather of the MRE. Doing a quick search, here's a link about M&Ms history for those interested. http://www.virtualnewarknj.com/memories/newark/bodianmm.htm Seems the Spaniards had the general idea first.
I was hoping there would be a food forum segment! I love Clif Bars, but they only go so far, and having been stuck far from the local (name your fastfood place here) I have had to make do with what I had in my jump bag. Believe me Clif Bars get old after three or four on an extended trip, so I made up cankits of the following comestibles. Tuna, canned or pouched. Dry breadstuffs like Rye Crisp (which I am now sick of) or MRE crackers purchased in bulk from Majorsuplusandsurvival.com. Drink mixes like Kool Aid, You may laugh, but your brain runs on SUGAR, pal ! Or Cytomax, Gatoraid, what have you. Uncle Ben's rice, it'll eventually plump no matter the temperature of the water used. Bullion or OXO cubes (question soon to follow, I'll need you help here!) A jar of Peanut Butter Assorted bagged snax and pougiebait (candy). This stuff can keep you fed and (less) grumpy when you are stuck Gawd-knows-where. My question is this: Does anyone know where I can find Bullion cubes that are NOT mostly salt? I know there have to be other cooks here, but so far, salt is the main food-value item in bullion. There has to be something out there with more food value!
You got me interested so I had a Google, these look good http://www.hormelfoods.com/brands/herb-Ox/ and Knorr do low salt as well because I have bought them but low salt do seem to be thin on the ground. There is also a make called Kallo which does vegetable stock cubes that are low salt. In the UK Bovril Beef extract makes good hot drinks but whether or not it is low in salt I don't know, or if it's available in the States.
You got me interested so I had a Google, these look good http://www.hormelfoods.com/brands/herb-Ox/ and Knorr do low salt as well because I have bought them but low salt do seem to be thin on the ground. There is also a make called Kallo which does vegetable stock cubes that are low salt. In the UK Bovril Beef extract makes good hot drinks but whether or not it is low in salt I don't know, or if it's available in the States. Yeah, salt , rather than protein seems to be the order of the day. I'll talk to some Britt pals and send them some sheckels to ship me some of the English kinds you have mentioned. Agh! Just polished off the last of me McViti's Hobnobs, too! On to English kit, I scored a few English 24 hour ration packs, great stuff, including componants for a brew-up, but the Dept. of Agriculture raided the boxes and made off with the beef pies, and sent me a threatening letter that stated I could be prosecuted for importing unsafe English beef products! I have never heard of an English E-Coli beef outbreak, but we get them here all the time... unsafe my keester! I'd love to get some more ration packs from England ...sans beef...don't wanna piss off the Agro-nazis, there were great! and the only other place to get "boiled sweets" is Canada.
Your Agro-nazis were probably worried about BSE, that's the reason most countries use for not importing British beef, as if no-one else has the problem. Here http://www.epimetrics.com/topics/one-page?page_id=276 is a little info. I think Knorr and Bovril are available in the States, the Kallo I am not sure about. As for a Food forum segment, just start your own thread on what ever you are interested in.
