MRE

to me one of the scariest things in the food world is an MRE. this is a package of food provided to soldiers in the military for when they are on missions and do not have access food to normal means of food. it generally contains something from each of the basic food groups plus some kind of snack. my younger brother is in the army and current stationed in taji, iraq. before he left in january he gave me a couple of MREs to try. i recently had my second MRE on monday night for dinner. the label said it was chicken with chunky salsa. upon opening it i found the following....

a bag of the so called chicken and chunky salsa
a bag of spanish rice
a packaged veggie cracker
a package of jalapeño cheese spread
a package of short bread cookies
a package of cappuccino
a package of peanut butter m&m's.
a condiment bag (miniature tabasco bottle, salt , pepper, sugar, and a tea bag)
last but not least a package of chemicals to that you add water to that heats up your meal in the self contained bag.

all in all it tasted good. i mixed the chicken & salsa with the rice, ate the cheese with crackers, dipped the cookies in my cappuccino, and ate my m&m's yesterday as a snack.

it still scares me that something can be packaged, not refrigerated, and not have an expiration date. i still can't get over the miniature bottle of tabasco.