Meals Ready Eat: XMRE 2200XT

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Most of you by now have at least heard of Meals Ready to Eat (MRE), but likely have not tried them yet. If you are reading this, then I’m guessing you are very interested in trying an MRE soon. MREs, which at one point in time were mainly used by the military, are becoming increasingly popular in the civilian world, due to their simplicity and long, strong life. For those of you who aren’t familiar with MREs, they are the prepacked meals the United States military eats when completing missions off base. They were created so the soldiers could have something quick to eat, without the long process of cooking something. They were also created to be temper proof and last up to 5 years without going bad. The downside to having long storage life and quick hot meals is consistency and taste are usually sacrificed.

You shouldn’t be expecting a 5-star meal, with MREs, since that is not its main purpose. They also may not be extremely healthy. The main goal of an MRE is to keep you alive in a dire situation, and that is how they should be reviewed. Being a military enthusiast, I have had my fair share of MREs and have come to actually like a good deal of them. Some are a lot better than other, but it really comes down to your own preference. For this review, I will be going over the MRE, XMRE 2200XT. It is a 24 hour MRE and for what it is worth it does its job.

XMRE 2200XT Meals

Last week on one of my camping trips, I decided only to eat MREs to get a feel for what it would be like in a war-like situation. For this trip, I choose the XMRE 2200XT since it is one of the 24 hours MREs I have yet to try at the time. This MRE is 2200 calories, which kept me full throughout the day.

Here is a list of the Menu items in this MRE:

Menu 1:

Breakfast: Wheat Snack Bread, French Vanilla Cappuccino, Grape Jelly.
Lunch: Meatballs and Marinara, Oatmeal Cookie, and Tropical Punch Beverage.
Dinner: Peanut Butter, Crackers, Lemon Lime Drink, and Mexican Style Chicken

Menu 2:

Breakfast: Wheat Snack Bread, French Vanilla Cappuccino, Grape Jelly.
Lunch: Beef Stew, an Oatmeal Cookie, and a Lemon Lime Drink.
Dinner: Penne Pasta, Crakers, Peanut Butter, Lemon Lime Drink and a Chocolate Chip Mini Cookies.

Menu 3:

Breakfast: Wheat Snack Bread, Irish Cream Cappuccino, Grape Jelly.
Lunch: Shredded Beef with BBQ Sauce, Oatmeal Cookie, and a Lime Lime Drink
Dinner: Chicken Pesto Pasta, Dry Fruit, Peanut Butter, Crackers, and an Orange Drink

Menu 4:

Breakfast: Wheat Snack Bread, Irish Cream Cappuccino, Grape Jelly.
Lunch: Chili and Macaroni, Oatmeal Cookie, and an Orange Drink.
Dinner: Cheese Tortellini, Crackers, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip Mini Cookies, and a Tropical Punch Drink.

This were the fours menu items that I could choose from, so you do have a variety of options to choose from when you get an XMRE 2200XT MRE package. For the most part, all MRE’s come with the same stuff. Here is a list that all MREs include:

• Optional Heater
• Condiment Kit
• Spoon
• Hot Beverage Bag
• Napkin
• Towelette
• Flavored Beverage
• Bread/Crackers
• Entree
• Snacks
• Sauce
• Instant Coffee

For this trip, I decided to try out Menu 3 from the list above, since I have grown to really like the shredded beef covered with BBQ sauce, which is included in the lunch. Once I found a good place to have lunch, I set up shop and took out my MRE to prepare it. One tip, I always tell people is to make sure you prepare your MRE on a level surface.

One of the first things that I noticed almost immediately was that the heater for this MRE worked extremely well. Most of the MREs that I have used on previous trips took a while to heat up, but this one heated up almost immediately. This is a huge plus if you only have a few minutes to get something in your belly.

After my meal was heated up, I was finally ready to try it out. Upon opening it up, it was exactly how I expected the shredded beef to be. It wasn’t anything special and didn’t look that great, but overall it was pretty tasteful. It’s one of the reasons I like the shredded beef option with BBQ sauce the best. It is really hard to make bbq sauce taste bad.

The next thing that I tried was the dessert, which in this case was an Oatmeal Cookie. It was a pretty decent size, and overall tasted pretty good compared to other MREs that I have tried in the past. The lemon-lime drink also was fairly good as well.

Overall the meals in the XMRE 2200 XT were surprisingly good. The breakfast and dinner options were pretty tasty as well, and I would get this MRE package again.

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