Since my post in the topic on 'Freeze Dried Foods' I have received an overwhelming number of PMs regarding the topic of Homemade MREs. I will post this information here for all of you to see, and this will help alleviate some of the answering of PMs. Use this information and distribute it freely. This will help a lot of people out in the long run, and let me know if you have anything to add.
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-size: 14pt">Making your own 'Homemade MREs'</span></span>
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Making your own MREs is very simple, cost effective, and a good way to taylor the menu to your needs. This will also allow you to tweak the caloric intake for your particular requirements. If you are going to be more active you will require more calories, and so on and so forth.
First, you look over commercial MREs and get a basic guideline for each meal. More than likely the meal will go something like this: a meal entree, a sugar snack, crackers, a drink mix, a salt & pepper packet, a Peanut Butter packet, and some other small caloric snack. Now that you have your baseline, and a general idea of what you are looking for you go to Wal-Mart and/or Sam's Club / Costco.
Then, you find items like Tuna Salad kit, Chicken Salad kit, Uncle Ben's Ready Made Rice, etc ... you get the idea. As a note for the record, I have done extensive research on 'Great Value' brand products from Wal-Mart. Ninety-nine percent of the time they are the comparable name brand product just in a different package that says 'Great Value'. As an example, Great Value Beef Ravioli is pretty darn close to Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli. What do you want to bet they are the exact same thing?
Next, after you have laid out your plan for your Homemade MREs start buying your products. Your basic meal plan will go something like this, and you can use this as a generic guideline.
1 - Tuna Salad Kit
1 - 3 oz. package M&Ms
1 - Crystal Light "on the go" drink packet
1 - square paper towel
1 - plastic utensils
1 - cracker packet
1 - peanut butter packet
Salt / Pepper packet.
As you see there is a generic guideline for this. You can tweak it to your own liking, but be sure to include as much protein as possible. ie ... substituting peanut M&Ms for regular.
Finally, use your Foodsaver or similar vacuum sealer to seal all of the contents into a gallon freezer bag.
Any questions?
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-size: 14pt">Making your own 'Homemade MREs'</span></span>
</span>
Making your own MREs is very simple, cost effective, and a good way to taylor the menu to your needs. This will also allow you to tweak the caloric intake for your particular requirements. If you are going to be more active you will require more calories, and so on and so forth.
First, you look over commercial MREs and get a basic guideline for each meal. More than likely the meal will go something like this: a meal entree, a sugar snack, crackers, a drink mix, a salt & pepper packet, a Peanut Butter packet, and some other small caloric snack. Now that you have your baseline, and a general idea of what you are looking for you go to Wal-Mart and/or Sam's Club / Costco.
Then, you find items like Tuna Salad kit, Chicken Salad kit, Uncle Ben's Ready Made Rice, etc ... you get the idea. As a note for the record, I have done extensive research on 'Great Value' brand products from Wal-Mart. Ninety-nine percent of the time they are the comparable name brand product just in a different package that says 'Great Value'. As an example, Great Value Beef Ravioli is pretty darn close to Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli. What do you want to bet they are the exact same thing?
Next, after you have laid out your plan for your Homemade MREs start buying your products. Your basic meal plan will go something like this, and you can use this as a generic guideline.
1 - Tuna Salad Kit
1 - 3 oz. package M&Ms
1 - Crystal Light "on the go" drink packet
1 - square paper towel
1 - plastic utensils
1 - cracker packet
1 - peanut butter packet
Salt / Pepper packet.
As you see there is a generic guideline for this. You can tweak it to your own liking, but be sure to include as much protein as possible. ie ... substituting peanut M&Ms for regular.
Finally, use your Foodsaver or similar vacuum sealer to seal all of the contents into a gallon freezer bag.
Any questions?
