Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) seem to make it into the stockpiles, bug-out bags, and trunks of many preppers as a must-have survival food. Unfortunately, few people do the leg work to understand MREs fully and whether they are a wise decision for themselves and their families. In this article, we’ll discuss the information you should consider to determine whether to include these meals as part of your food storage and emergency plans.
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In this post
- What is the purpose of MREs?
- Why should I include them in my emergency food storage plan?
- How long can I survive on MREs?
- How long do MREs last?
- How many should I store?
- How do I rotate them?
- Are there side effects to eating MREs?
- Are MREs all I need?
- Are MREs a good choice for bug-out bags?
- Here’s how I store mine
- Are they a good option for sharing with others in emergencies?
- Related Content
What is the purpose of MREs?
Let’s first talk about the source and purpose of MREs. Most of us are familiar with MREs as military food. The objective of the MRE is to fuel the troops and for that fuel to be 100% eaten and converted into energy.
Uncle Sam created them to fuel fighting soldiers in combat situations. The taste has to be decent enough to avoid revolt from the troops and to encourage them to eat the whole thing. If the forces aren’t eating, it wastes money, weight, volume, and, more importantly, calories/fuel.
Equally as important as what goes into MREs is what doesn’t get put into them. Uncle Sam does not want troops to have gas, loose stools, or lots of bathroom breaks on the battlefield. Therefore, you can expect a certain amount of constipation to be “built-in” to MREs. Ingredients are not added to increase constipation, but they definitely remove any items or contents that would encourage a regular or loose stool.
Why should I include them in my emergency food storage plan?
Meals Ready to Eat are convenient, self-contained, and require no refrigeration. They include an entree, side dish, utensils, condiments, dessert, and napkin, plus pouches and flameless heaters for preparation. The flameless heater allows for on-the-spot cooking with no gas, electricity, pot, pans, or cooking utensils needed. It’s pretty slick, really.
As another layer of food security, they provide a backup to your backups for almost any emergency or disaster, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, and so on. You get the picture.
How long can I survive on MREs?
MREs are only intended to be eaten for 21 days!
The military plan uses a plan of two per person per day, times 21 days, equaling 42 MREs. There are 12 in a case, which is almost four cases of MREs per person. These MRE stocking levels only account for half of your daily caloric need (more on this below), so you still need to augment this diet with at least one hot meal of regular food per day.
How long do MREs last?
While it can vary by brand, three years seems to be about the average advertised shelf life of MREs. Of course, just as with anything in your food storage, the environment significantly affects the shelf life. They could last longer if kept out of direct sunlight in cool, dry temperatures. You’ll need to experiment to determine the best rotation schedule, which we’ll discuss next.
How many should I store?
We’ll calculate storage quantities and rotation schedules based on three things:
- the military plan of two per person per day
- the assumption that MREs have a shelf life of three years
- the assumption that you can eat them 21 days every year
Therefore, for each person, at any given time, you would stockpile 126 MREs, minimum. That’s 2 MREs per day, times 21 days, times three years. A case typically contains 12 meals, so that’s 10.5 cases per adult. To make the math easy, I’ll round that up to 12 cases per person.
How do I rotate them?
Using the above calculations, you’ll need to buy four new cases and use up four cases per year. This will result in maintaining the restocking rate and freshness.
However, the above figures are minimums.
Let’s assume we could go 21 days “on” MREs and then two or three or five months “off” MREs. And then again, return to another 21 days “on” again. Then you must stockpile twice as many MREs. And remember, you need to double your consumption to maintain proper rotation. This means four MREs a month must be eaten by each person.
Think carefully about your MRE stockpiles. If you’re going to buy them, be prepared to both buy and exhaust and equal annually. In our original calculation of 126 MREs per person per year, plan to purchase or restock a third of your supply each and every year.
Are there side effects to eating MREs?
Any person considering MREs for food storage should first understand the duration at which our bodies can tolerate them.
Eating an MRE-based diet is like going on any new diet. You are consuming food that your body is unfamiliar with processing. Anyone who has spent time on a diet will tell you that weird things can happen to their body. A change in stool, urine, digestion, energy, or appetite is not uncommon. MREs are no different. A person’s body is not accustomed to them and will revolt in some manner.
Keep in mind that these side effects are not necessarily unique to MREs. For example, you would probably encounter similar results if you switched to a 100% freeze-dried diet from a commercial manufacturer.
Are MREs all I need?
No. As a general rule of thumb, Uncle Sam tries to get the troops at least one hot meal daily. Guidelines like this imply that with 21 days of MREs, this isn’t the only thing the troops eat.
Troops in combat burn about 4,200 calories per day. Each MRE contains about 1,200 calories. The troops are issued two per day, assuming a hot breakfast and then MREs for lunch & dinner while out on patrols/maneuvers. This typically creates a negative caloric balance. Our military troops only eat about 2,400 – 3,600 calories per day but burn about 4,200 calories. As you can see by the numbers, this is not the ideal food pyramid or anywhere close! Check out this informative article about the importance of calories and food storage.
MREs are simply survival food.
Can you eat them for more than 21 days and survive? Sure.
Should you? Probably not.
It’s much more economical to buy freeze-dried products in #10 cans, which have a shelf life of 10, 20, or 30+ years. In addition, freeze-dried products require less rotating, so there is less worry about eating them up before their expiration date. Read about The Survival Mom’s favorite company for freeze-dried food!
Are MREs a good choice for bug-out bags?
It’s not practical to use MREs in bug-out bags or when hiking. They’re heavy, bulky, and contain water.
Remember, these are designed for troops on short-term, lightweight patrol missions. The military will airdrop any extra-needed supplies and food they may need. Some preppers may not feel compelled to stock MREs. Look for lighter and possibly cheaper alternatives!
Also, take note if you are traveling on an airplane with MREs. They are not TSA-approved the way they are because the heating elements within them are banned from both checked and carry-on baggage. If you want to fly with your MRE, break it open, remove the individual packets, and take the heater element out.
Here’s how I store mine
Our food pantry has about 90 days of food and water for four people. In addition, we have one hundred #10 cans of foods per person (400 cans total). I am slowly working on tripling that amount. Lastly, we have 24 cases of MREs per person, which is 96 cases.
We annually refresh at 8 cases per person per year. So each person in our household has to exhaust eight MREs per month. To do this, we take them with us on vacations, cross-country trips during the holidays, on the boat, etc. We even give them away to friends and family. In the trunk of our car, we always keep about a half-dozen. If they go bad, we throw them away. Over time, we’ve noticed they don’t really spoil; they just seem to lose their nutrients.
Are they a good option for sharing with others in emergencies?
We keep twice as many MREs within our food storage as we should have. The reason is so that during an emergency, we are prepared to help support family, friends, and neighbors. Unfortunately, our storage is not equipped, nor do I want to feed them for the long term. Instead, I’ll give them about six MREs per person and tell them to hike to safety or other friends. We can’t have them drain our pantry, but they can take the MREs as a gift and use it to get the heck outta dodge. They don’t have to go away empty-handed.
By my calculations, we could send as many as 36 people away with six MREs per person and still have 63 MREs per person for our family. We also have one hundred #10 cans of freeze-dried food, which should be enough to feed one person for a whole year. We have four people and store 400 cans of food. From our experiences, we’ve learned that about 100 cans fit beneath a king-sized bed.
Related Content
- Thrive Life Just-Add-Water Pouch Meal Reviews
- Just-Add-Hot-Water Meals: Deciding Which are Right for Your Family
- 3 Key Principles for Building Emergency Kits
- 6 Simple tips to Packing a Highly Functional Emergency Kit
Hopefully, this has been a beginning point for you as you consider MREs and the other types of foods you can store. Buy a case or two and try them out, noting how your body digests them and what meals you like. Then plan your MRE storage and rotation accordingly.
Do you store MREs?
Originally published May 13, 2017; updated by The Survival Mom editors.Save
Thank you for your informative article. More info than any other have encountered and also because it considers several angles.
I’d post my website but having trouble getting it up and running.
Good information.
From a veteran’s point of view. The full MRE was hardly ever all eaten at one time. It was spaced out over time. Main meal pouch might be eaten first. Crackers and cheese/peanut butter eaten later as a snack. Often the coffee pack was never heated in water. We would just open the pouch and put it in our mouths while on guard duty and wash it down with water. Ramen noodles were a useful add to an MRE meal. You could heat water add noodles, one of the meal packs and the cheese and make a great soup. During the warmer season we would suck on the match tips to get extra sulfur into the blood to keep the mosquitos away. Deserts like the m&ms were usually used for trading.
Your shelf life of three years is just an average. The military has charts showing the shelf life at various temperatures. Depending on your storage temperature you might be rotating your MRE’s to often or not often enough. Also, be aware that there are multiple MRE packers and quality and taste may vary, and it is illegal to sell MRE’s designated for military use, civilian packaging is used for sale to the public. PS – I liked the old C-Rations before the MRE’s were introduced.
I liked the “C” rations too, Denis, much more than the MRE’s. You didn’t need water for anything except the drinks. All you needed was your P-38 (can opener) and you were in business.The old type flash suppressors on M-16’s made great metal band cutters for opening cases of C rats. In Vietnam, at night, while on post, we’d sometimes have a small fire going in a barrel. We’d put cans of rats that we didn’t care much for in the fire, and eventually they would explode. One of us would yell “incoming” and the new guys would dive for cover! lmao!
I create C-Ration shadow boxes that contain one meal and items you may want added. These are for show only and are the original Cs with the smokes.
My dad would bring home MREs after AT every year back when he was still in the reserves. Not a lot of them, just enough that each of us kids got one. I don’t recall them having heating elements in them back then, and we just put the entree packets on the dashboard of an old car that wasn’t running and let the sun heat them up.
I agree with Marc. Even we kids didn’t ever eat the whole thing at once–we made them last for days because for us it was a treat. We never used the coffee. The matches went to mom right away, the rest was ours.
You can buy surplus MREs, but most on the market are not the same as the MREs used by our troops, to include less caloric content, and often not even the same type entrees. I have bought some surplus MREs, and same as others have stated, never consumed the entire packet at one time. I have bought MREs items on line, in particular the packets of peanut butter and the flat bread, which are easier to carry with you and have on hand for emergencies. Some of the MRE entrees are quite tasty, to me, and others not so much so. Easier to buy separately instead of buying by the case and getting stuck with some that no one is really going to want to eat. A lot of the side dish items can also be bought separately and used, if desired, as side dishes to other meal sources. They have some nice side dishes. I have tried several of them, again, some are really good, some would, in my opinion, gag a healthy maggot. Check them out before you need them. Stock up on the ones you and your family members like. Great variety available. Be aware, the hotter the area where you store them, the shorter the viability of the MRE, best stored at under 70 degrees. You do not want to store them in the trunk of your car in the warmer months in the warmer parts of our nation. Also, if the grid goes down during the summer months and you live in a warm area, eat them quickly or they will become next to useless really quick. From what I have read, the same goes for most “survival foods,” the given shelf life is based on optimal temperature of storage. Most “survival food” will become useless in short measure when stored in temperatures over 90 degrees. Anywhere over 70 starts lowering the shelf life expectancy.
Very good information. Thanks for sharing.
which website is the best for ordering actual real military issue MRE,s
I use the rotation method created during the Korean war by a couple of mechanics. One was my dad the color code method which I hope is still used blue green yellow & red red being the oldest blue being the newest a person can sustain fir longer than 21 days up to 40 days. but long shelf life freeze dried in sealed containers best to also have in stock also color coded but can be rotated according to their times of usage/consumption also Mre’s do not need to be bought in case mass can be purchased individually (less package container less garbage) and can be integrated either by personal preference or by family volume and consumption B,L,D anything one wished to pass alone to others should be stored as a separate consideration less to worry about when inventory and reorder becomes necessary. If at all…
The idea that MREs were only intended to be eaten for 21 days is not due to any ill side effects if you eat them past that date or length of time. So, in truth, your statement is incorrect and I understand that is what Wikipedia.org states in the “requirements” section. There were troops forward deployed who were eating MREs for far longer periods than just 21 days. The idea of MREs being listed as used for just 21 days is because they were created to supplement thinned combat supply lines. The idea is that if a military Unit is isolated or cut off from military supply lines, they could supplement their food source with MREs until supply units can supply cooked on-site food, which is far more beneficial for morale but will provide the same amount of calories intaker as an MRE, depending on the version of MRE. Average. The average calorie count is between 1000-1300 calories, depending on the meal and version. Older versions of MREs also have less storage life. Newer MREs have a shelf life stored in 60-degree temps and can last as long as 5-7 years depending on the conditions of the storage area. I wanted to add this comment because your comment regarding 21 days being their intended use, While is not untrue can be misleading. you can eat MREs indefinably as a food source, this obviously would be suggested if accompanied by a good water or equivalent drinking source to also ensure hydration. Additionally, you can extend the life of a single MRE greatly by breaking it down into categories and use based on activity. Meaning, that if you have 5 MREs and you know you are not doing anything active, there is no need to utilize the full MRE or even eat a single MRE daily. The average MRE is as previously stated around 1000-1300 calories. If a person goes 2-3 days without food, the body will break down fatty tissue and the muscle will then feed off the fat as a fuel source. It is only when you reach 7 days without eating will the body starts to feed and break down muscle as a nutrition source. So, if you were stationary and did not require all the daily calorie intake. You could use intermittent fasting and stretch 5 MREs out to eating one MRE every 5-6th days. Stretch 5 days of food resources out to 25-30 days. This means you could probably make a single box of 12 MREs last around 60-65 days per person providing a single box per person. That is just going 5-6 days without eating between meals. Intermittent fasting becomes much easier as time passes and the body adjusts to lack of food. For those less active individuals within a group like children, you could feed them slightly less without any significant impact. They require less depending on the body size. Which is Another aspect that could be taken into account, the size of the body. Meaning that smaller-stature individuals require fewer calories. No this does not mean the fatter you are the more food you get. This would apply to men, women, and children stature. Additionally, effort of work, stress, and other specific attributes will dictate who should eat less for longer periods. Keep in mind, that this comment refers to the idea of dragging out food resources for as long as you can without anyone starving to death. Using intermittent fasting methods (which I can tell you I used myself in combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan) a single motivated person could survive off just 5-6 boxes of MRE per year if they used the 5-6 day method of internet fasting, give or take a meal or two. I believe it comes out to exactly 360 days if you stretch out 1 box to 60 days even. 6 boxes will sustain you for 360 days, without any issue. Do the math on that and you can store a single year of MREs for emergencies for one person if you apply intermittent fasting for 5-6 days per meal. It would only cost you 900$ at 75.00$ per box and if it were 80.00$ per box it would cost you 960.00$, if you are paying more than that per box I would suggest that you are being ripped off. Although I know you can preorder new MREs from civilian companies for around 110.00$-120.00$. I know I will get some saying, this guy is crazy for talking about not eating for 5-6 days, keep in mind these would be to stretch out your food resources. The average human will starve for around 43 to 70 days without food, that is depending on physical activity and other outside influences, at times it may be less depending on the environment. The point being, that just 5-6 days is nothing when you are facing death if you do not come up with a viable plan. I am a single man, I feel for you guys with multiple kids and a wife. Some hard choices will have to be faced if it comes down to survival. Decisions will be greatly swayed by who is your favorite who contributes to your overall possible survival and who will hinder it. So, plan so you do not have to face those decisions.