For any prepper, the easiest and safest option for nutrition in a SHTF scenario is a MRE, or Meals, Ready to Eat.
But have you ever wondered what the effects on your body would be if you ate only MREs for 30 days? I did. So, I did it.
This article is all about that experience where I share with you the ins and outs, or the struggle with the outs if you know what I mean.
Why Do This?
For any prepper, research and planning is of utmost importance. The last thing you want is to be forced to figure something out during a SHTF scenario when proper research and preparation beforehand could mean the difference between life and death.
And much like many of you, my storage is filled with MREs I’ve stockpiled in preparation. So, I thought why not experiment now so I know how better to prepare for that scenario when it gets here?
The Research
I didn’t want to go into this experiment blind. After all, the military has been forcing soldiers to live off these things for decades. Since the MREs I have are the same as the military uses, I started there.
Related: Food Prepping Skills I Learned in the Military
MREs contain, on average, 1300 calories per meal. That, in itself, isn’t bad. However, there are also about 170 grams of carbs, 45 grams of protein, and 50 grams of fat. This made two things certain for me; One, I would need to drink a ton of water, and two, I would need to up my activity level.
The Beginning
Before I get into my own experience, I do want to add that not everyone will have the same experience as I did.
Current health and activity levels will play a major role in how your body responds to consistently eating MREs. Also, the military doesn’t recommend going more the 21 days on nothing but MREs. I was going 30.
I found out early on the other acronym for MRE, meals refusing to exit. I pride myself on the regularity of my bowels. When eating nothing but MREs, even after doubling my water intake, I rarely had a bowel movement that first week. It got to the point where I was in pain and contemplated giving up the experiment. Before I did that, I decided to do more research.
I found two things I was doing wrong; Even though I had doubled my water intake, I still wasn’t drinking enough, and I wasn’t spreading it out over the day. With that in mind, I was determined to finish the experiment.
It took a couple of days but once I was getting enough water throughout the day, I did start to have a little bit of regularity. (The recommendation I found was that you should drink half of your body weight in ounces. So, for a 200-pound person, that would be 100 ounces of water.)
Bubble Gut
Constipation wasn’t the only side effect, especially early on. Going into that second week, I was extremely bloated all the time. I expected this to a degree due to the amount of sodium most MREs have, but nothing could have prepared me for this. The problem was this made doing any sort of physical activity extremely uncomfortable.
This is where I must admit I may have stepped outside the bounds of my own experiment. I ended up taking some Beano. You know those commercials, right? “Take Beano and there’ll beano gas.” I took some and thankfully it helped, some.
The problem is you may not always have access to medicine in a true SHTF scenario, but I can guarantee you Beano has found its way into my bug-out bag. You can learn here what other medicines you definitely need to stockpile before an emergency situation, when access to medical care will be scarce.
Convenience
This was possibly the part of the experiment I was looking forward to the most; not having to worry about deciding what to cook.
Then there’s the idea of not having to clean the kitchen and all that entails. I learned, though, that even convenience has its price.
There’s an episode of the Andy Griffith Show where Andy is invited to eat dinner at three or four different homes in one night. Rather than offend anyone, he decided to eat at each dinner. However, each home was eating spaghetti. By the time he got to the last dinner, just looking at the spaghetti made him want to vomit.
The downside to my MRE supply is that I didn’t have much variety. This was something I hadn’t thought of when building my MRE supply. I just figured nutrition was the most important thing, so I wanted to be sure I had food storage. By the time the fourth week rolled around, I was wanting to vomit just thinking about eating that MRE chicken alfredo.
⇒ If You Have a Food Stockpile, You Need to Learn This
What I started doing was mixing and matching MRE meals. I soon found which items I liked the most and simply ate those, regardless of how many opened MREs I had. Now, I realize in a SHTF scenario, this isn’t ideal. But now that I know that variety is important, I can adjust and make my supply better in preparation.
Ending the Experiment
To be honest, as I went into the fourth week and the final stretch of my 30-day MRE diet, I felt relatively good. I wasn’t as regular as before, but I felt better than the first week.
When day 30 came, though, I was ecstatic. I had been craving a cheeseburger and fries for the last ten days.
So, on day 31 I fulfilled my craving. And I regret it.
When I say I got sick I mean fluid coming out of both ends, hugging the toilet kind of sick, and I did not understand it at all. What I found out was why the military limits MRE intake to 21 days.
To achieve the long shelf life MREs are most famous for, the food used in them is cooked more thoroughly than a normal meal would be, and preservatives are added to prevent bacteria from growing inside the pouches.
These preservatives, though, also kill the good bacteria your gut produces. While it doesn’t kill it off completely, what happens is when you go back to normal food after prolonged usage of MREs, your gut doesn’t have enough of these good bacteria built up and you get sick.
The lessons I learned from my experience will be invaluable to me when the SHTF scenarios happen.
Because of my experiment, I now have fiber supplements and other vitamins to ensure I’m getting the proper balance of nutrition. And, of course, the Beano. I’ve also started stocking a variety of MREs to avoid the risk of burnout.
What I have also come to realize is that should the SHTF scenario last longer than a few days, I am making finding an alternative food supply a top priority.
I’ve started researching ways to preserve my own food through dehydration and canning. Perhaps you can learn from my experiment, too, and better prepare yourself and your family.
For those looking to ensure their food supply in any situation, I highly recommend checking out The Lost Superfoods. This comprehensive guide provides invaluable information on over 126 survival foods that can be preserved and stored without refrigeration for years.
It’s a great resource to help you build a stockpile of nutritious, long-lasting foods, giving you peace of mind when SHTF. Prepare now and ensure your family’s sustenance no matter what happens.
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MRE’s are temporary food solution for certain military operations in place of the 3 hots and a cot.
MRE’s can cause a brick constipation unless you chew the gum in the accessory packet.
The morning after;
Today after the New York one sided convict a ham sandwich court decision by hyper liberal American haters of freedom from a bully judge appointed by Let’ Go Branden. Do all native born Americans fight back against the growing number of illegal American replacement voters, in these next elections?
The powers to be want illegals spread all over America to out vote us in this 2024 presidential election. The open southern border are a plandemic of things to come in these months leading up to November 5th.
Illegals have never been allowed to vote in this country, EVER
Typical indoctrinated liberal rhetoric as on Que. Why do you think on mainstream news they have hinted in places like New York the liberals want illegals to vote in their elections this year. Quit smoking Biden’s downgraded restricted medicinal pot for a change, clear your head.
Neither are “dead” people…..but…
Illegals have no legal right to vote in this country, likewise, the dead, have no legal right to vote. And yet they somehow do, in most states. It is also not legal for any single citizen / person, to vote multiple times. To vote for others, and to harvest ballots, and exchange your voting preference for theirs. But has happened in Arizona, and likely other states. Please … out of respect for our Republic, and freedom, stop listening to and reading the news.
You should be right, but unfortunately you are not. Recently Boston is advocating illegals and 11 year old and up vote. Once illegals start voting in local elections what stops them from voting in federal elections, especially in states that do not verify citizenship. It is a felony for an illegal to vote if they know it is against the law, but not a felony if they do not know.
Illegals have never, UNTIL NOW, been allowed to invade this country in such numbers, either, and yet they are doing so.
Washington and Boston have both been trying to pass laws allowing them to vote. NY City TRIED to have 800,000 get the vote, but fortunately that bill did not pass.
Pay attention to what’s going on around you.
Really? I heard differently, even back when Romney was running.
Nutsoid response. The convicted sex abuser, is now convicted of attempting to cover up payments to one of his prostitute Mistresses. All we hear from Trump’s cultists is it’s a liberal conspiracy. But never about the facts of the case. Also, anyone who works in the electoral system knows that illegals and dead people don’t vote. Who do vote illegally are multiple Republicans in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, etc. Who feel the electoral process is cooked and therefore must vote twice or three times to reverse that. Bunch of right-wing fascist hypocrites of course.
Thank you Let’s Go Brandon supporter, like a bootlicker of Robert D’sherro who is plain nuts a raging bullsh*ter. A has been actor.
A fake Italian mobster, there was jury bias in a liberal court of NYC.
1st Trump lost a civil case to Mz Carrol. He was never tried or convicted of any sex crime. 2nd if you were truly informed you would know that E Jean Carrol’s story is laughably bogus and should have never seen a courtroom, but just another example of New York courts. Also claims from women are not always valid, just ask Congress which has a special fund that has paid out 17 million in the last 20 years. If paying Stormy off was illegal, why was withholding Hunter’s laptop during the 2020 election not? Tara Reade claims that FJB actually did sexually assault her, was falsely claimed to be a Russian plant to shut her up, and she had to actually flee the country in fear of her life. For a supposed Dr, you are poorly informed. I only hope you are a Dr of Education like Dr Jill and not making health decisions for the unsuspecting.
It was 12 native born Americans who voted to convict that ham-sandwich of an IQ, and he admitted that he was in fact 100% guilty of all charges when he said that he should’ve enjoyed 100% Executive Privilege to do anything, to commit ANY CRIMES, that he wanted *simply* because he was once upon a time a [p]Resident.
Kudos to every single actual Patriot who did the right thing in NY when they knew they’d be severely at risk for doing it.
But I can only give you a 7 out of ten buzzword award however. Do better next time and maybe remember to toss in “Marxism” or “Obama” if you want a better score.
Meal Ready to Eat tastes better when those main meals are warmed up in hot water before opening the packet to eat.
Today is it a sunrise or a sunset, is this day the stepping stone of a new paradigm to MAGA or Bidenomics since the disaster in New York?
I ate these MREs in the field after a few days my stomach would churn those meals are hard on the digestion to function in the field. Mre’s are not a successful long term food source I would stock up on for the SHTF.
You eat to not be hungry, not to be full. LRRP rations in Vietnam would have the same effect. The idea is to not have a bowel movement. They take time and leave evidence. The montagnards could smell you a half a mile away. These are for tactical operations not camping trips.
These ready to eat meals are not high on my list of food items to eat.
To reduce the cost we taxpayers have to support these illegal’s free ride. Let’s give them nothing but MRE’s for their only food source and those confiscated tents from those campus Hamas supporters.
Watch how fast those illegals will deport themselves back to their home country in a blink of our eyes, LOL!
Yeah I like that idea of giving all illegals crashing the border and living in expensive hotel rooms MRE’s forever.
Alligators in the Rio Grande River system might slow down the illegals from entering!
Amen to that! Get them freshwater gators to work for the Border Patrol while the BP agents have to play wet nurse to those illegal freeloaders.
Those gamers would eat the evidence of the people crossing. They might even get some of the Cartel Members!
Gators not gamers. Wow, spell check!
Yup. Had a girlfriend who could get her hands on MRE,s. Took them on a climbing trip to Yosemite and ate them for two weeks. I know you’re supposed to drink a lot of water with them. Didn’t have a proper shit in nearly 4 weeks. Ouch. Lesson, drink much more water than you think.
what is MRE???
READ. THE. ARTICLE.
Meals rejected by Ethiopians
wawa, is that Chinese for boohoo? LOL!
Another illegal invading our internet page on welfare.
Meals Ready To Eat
Pizza from Dominos
Really informative- especially regarding the gut flora and how important finding other food sources is! Also, the variety aspect really makes sense. At a time when my family and I might be at low spirits for other reasons, dread of consuming sustenance would be a terrible obstacle. Thanks!!!
I have them in my inventory but mainly as a last resort or as trade goods.
Anybody up for pemmican?
I made some in 2020. I ate most and purposely saved 1/2 a jar to see what happens. This morning, they are fine 4 years later on the humid gulf coast.
Which is the best original native American pemmican recipe to use?
There are some that add more ingredients than the original I don’t have access to Buffalo or Deer meat can beef be substituted?
Thanks
Pemmican is a bit of a process. Rendering tallow is easy but takes about 8 hours. Ask the meat cutter for beef fat from trimming. 5 pounds does a quart of tallow. Put in a crock pot on either setting and dry the beef and blueberries. The liquid is the tallow. The fat and gristle stays in. Your dog will love that stuff. Ladle out the tallow through a cheese cloth and put a lid on it. It’s good for decades. Use good ground beef. I use buffalo but you said it wasn’t available. Brown one pound. Spread it on a cookie sheet. Big box of blueberries. Cut them in half and spread on a cookie sheet. Put in the oven at 190 for 5 hours or when you feel they are crunchy dry. Put both in a food processer and make dust. Put that in a bowl and add tallow until it sticks together. I roll mine in golf ball size. Some push it flat. Whatever is easiest to store.
That’s it. If you use store tallow there is an expiration date. They do add stuff to it. If you render your own, one time may stay liquid. One time may stay firm tan color. One time it’s liquid on the bottom and firm on the top. There are different youtube tutorials but this is what I do. I usually do 4 pounds but only two cookie sheets fit in my oven so there is the time consuming part. There is no set ratio of any of this mix. If you want more sweet? Add more dried berries. Do not add nuts or seeds. That will kill the shelf life. Once you have made your first batch and see you have about 12-15 pieces you will know how to make more.
While in theory, a great idea, pemmican is actually quite hard to make and fairly tasteless unless you use a lot of berries
There is a recipe for pemican in The Lost Ways book. Look it up
“I Ate Only MREs for a Month “. Oh, you poor thing!
C.B. Clement
MSGT. USMC RETIRED
Vietnam Veteran 1966-1967 & 1969-1970 (Lots & lots of C-rats)
Your right, unfortunately many of the existing C-rats have not been stored properly over the years and deteriorated into toxic gumbo.
I would rather have eaten C-rats than MRE’s any day of the week.
I guess it was back in the 1940 era C-rats were made and lasted through the Unforgotten War Korea, my dad was in, to the Nam days. We still had backup C-rats on our destroyer in the late 1970’s.
There were many generations of the MRE’s before they perfected them of better quality today.
Still don’t care for them particularly, did trade them with the locals for their home cooked meals much better. But you have to be careful in certain foriegn countries.
Anyway interesting article for the NFG’s.
Toxic gumbo. Lol what a great description!
Vietnam, still had C rats stored on my LPD. Snuck them by the case down to after steering, and would regularly pass up meals on the mess decks, to spend part of my watch, opening cans of C-rats, setting them on hot hydraulic pumps to heat them up, and chow down. I loved C rats.
C-Rats were a lot better than MREs! During two tours in Vietnam Cs were good IF you were allowed to pick your brand! Ham and limas and green scrambled eggs were NOT high on my list though when I had no choice they were at least easy to consume if you didn’t look closely….As stated drink water and use gut meds without fail!
The military should have stayed with C-rats in modern manufacture than using these MRE’s that cause too much digestive issues.
The high up mucky mucks never talk to the guys in the field what they need to eat. They always experiment on the military as guinea pigs in food and vaccines before mandating it to civilians as we have seen of the Covid plandemic.
I served 22 years in the military. We would only eat 1 or 2 MREs in one day. They are not meant to be eaten for long periods of time either. Yes, variety is a good thing. I would focus on more canning, dehydrating or freeze drying of food for long term. Also keep wheat berries, and dried beans to help make other foods like breads and biscuits. You can grind dried beans into a flour just like wheat berries to make a flour with more nutritional value.
Did not know that about bean ‘flour’! Thanks Floyd.
Very good to know. Never thought about the preservatives and their effects on the body. I learned a few things with this article. Thank you.
Keep the email links coming my friend. Much love and respect Claude.
Keep your powder dry, it’s going to be a long night.
I ate Mres in training only and for only about 3 days , not intended to eat more than that
learned to be selective in trading , for what I liked , never got sick or any side effects
The water we had to drink was worse than the mre s
goes back to the moderation in all things motto
anything you do to excess and in a glutton state will harm you
YOU were not intended to eat process food or preserved food for a long duration of time
better to mix with any kind of growing food source than to become the food you eat
well preserved , processed , and sick with many ailments
even good food when eaten in excess or in a consistant time frame will have side effects
many good wholesome wild ingredients , you might not like the sound of them but they are great with spices and salt and pepper , which mres always came with in the package
helped get the products down .
When your spoiled you choose
when your starving you accept what you have or can get
This was a wonderful real life story! I had researched these as I was tired of the constant bombardment of adds. They certainly weren’t all they promised. You also have to take in consideration of the calorie intake needed daily.
I chose to make my own meals with dehydrated goods. I make my own low salt bouillon, my own immune boosting powder and pack as much nutrients as I can in those meals. I make my own mixes that are much healthier than what you buy in the store. It’s work but assured survival is most important. i save all glass containers and fill with sterilized water. My canning jars are for food. Do your research folks…thank Matt for this awesome article. Quit complaining about the government and concentrate on surviving this nonsense.
I lived on C Rations for a year in the Corps while in Vietnam. I think they are light years better than MRE’s.
Thanks for doing that…someone had to! Beano. I laughed but then thought…hmmm. Adding it to the grocery list for our Bags. Interesting info on MREs killing ALL the bacteria in your gut! Yikes!!