I have heard some success stories of hikers using the self-heating MRE's. Anyone have an opinion/ experience? I will be attempting my thru-hike of the AT mid February.
_Clete_MRE's - Appalachian Trail
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#1
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#3
You save the weight of a stove, but you have a lot more weight for the food. Self-heating MREs contain food that you don't need to add water (ready to eat). That means you are carrying all that water as food weight. With other food, like Knorr noodles, rice, freeze dried or dehydrated foods, etc., you carry it dry and add water to cook. So you only carry the water weight the distance from the water source to your campsite. MREs work when you would have to carry the cooking water your whole trip anyway (in the desert) and you would only need the stove for a couple meals. Otherwise, way to heavy.
_Turtle Walking_
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#4
I've used them a few times on short section hikes, but can't imagine toting many of them for a longer distance. They are good, though. Very tasty and full of the right nourishment. But heavy -- even if you get rid of all the unneeded items in the package like the hand wipes and the tiny bottle of tabasco sauce.
_Woody_
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#5
I guess the questions is exactly what constitutes a success story. "Mission accomplished" alone doesn't say very much anymore.
_stinking benjamin_
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#6
Right! And "acting stupidly" now simply means the police were doing their jobs.
_yucaipatim_
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#7
Having lived off of of MREs for weeks at a time while in the field (USMC), they can get boring. I do not know if they ever changed the packaging but we were warned (in the 80's) not to drink any water we used to heat our MREs as part of the pouches exterior could leach into the water and make you sick if you drank it.
I use to to hike the AT in the 70’s and I carried freezed dried. Back then Mountain House was the only source of freezed dried meals I knew of. The civilian version came in a red package and said meal for 2, the military version came in a green package (identical contents as the civilain as far as I could tell) and said meal for 1. They both tasted the same.
_Greg S Wheat_