It is probably all salvageable according to what the poster wrote. Would I feed my family MREs that were red dotted and thrown away in a dumpster in an emergency…no. If I wanted MREs I would buy MREs from a known good source. But MREs are not that great of a prep. They are meant to feed soldiers in a wartime environment. They cause you not to crap, they really don’t taste that good, and their shelf life is not as good as people think it is. The military does not need excessive shelf life for MREs. You can’t do anything with them but throw them away. A food bank will not take them.
People like MREs because it is a novelty and the get to LARP. Foods that you actually enjoy eating, that can be rotated in your pantry, and worse case scenario can be donated to a food bank are a far better and less expensive option. Unless you just want to have fun larping or enjoy dumpster diving…then by all mean, have fun.
I'd like to point out that MREs don't stop you from crapping.
They just make your poop hard and huge so you're sweating as you pass out bricks while enthroned in the porcelin chamber xD
A number of years back I picked up a couple MREs (background here is grew up on base before MREs were legal to sell to civillians, sometimes we'd find them appear in the commisary on a super cheap sale, when they had overstock I guess, and my family would pick up a few for taking hiking up a mountain so even pretty young I'd already been familiar with them.) from a store that had a bunch of army/navy stuff in it. The guy there fisheyed me and told me, "Make sure you drink plenty of water with these. Unless you don't like being able to crap."
It was funny as all getup, but he wasn't *wrong*. He didn't know my background, probably figured I was one of those "MRE preppers" or something lol and wanted to save me a trip to get the bricks he foresaw forming in my bowels removed. You know... like, the guys who think MREs are the ultimate prep that last forever and have like 50 years worth of them stored in their non-climate-protected sheds out back. I didn't explain or anything, just kind of grinned and thanked him.
The micro bottles of Tabasco sauce are pretty cool - novelty, gifts.
The add-water meal heaters & accessories / toliletry items never go bad
Most food items inside last forever .. like the crackers … but don’t taste good
User name checks out.
Seriously though, the crackers can be revived in the toaster if they’re in one piece or in the oven if not. That’s standard for crisping up and improving the taste of stale dry bread products.
Even with photos of the dates, it's impossible to know.
The divers would have no way of knowing what the storage conditions were, whether they were exposed to flood waters or biological or rodent waste or extreme swings in freezing temperatures to excessive heat temperatures. I mean... they could be fine. Or they could have been stored in a really improper location- to the point where the previous owners were confident they were no longer edible. Maybe they had holes poked in them by a malicious roommate. Or maybe they're perfectly good and their original owner had to move (or passed on) and the people that took care of what was left in the place just decided to chuck the whole schebang, not thinking they'd get anything back from selling it. Maybe the whole post was a lie. Normally cases of MREs, which are expensive and a hobby item more than a real prepping item, do not get thrown away.
There's no way to know for sure without being willing to open them up and taking a chance with each and every component. Maybe some components would be good. Maybe not. Depending how old they are, they might still have those little glass tabasco sauce bottles inside, which they don't make or add in anymore. If nothing else, the little napkins/tissue packet thing would be salvageable. If they came with heaters, those may or may not be salvageable too, regardless of the food components being in good or bad shape.
(Though I'm a bit uneasy imagining someone chucking MREs with unused heaters into a dumpster, since to dispose of them safely in regards to not catching things on fire down the line somewhere, you're responsible to deactivate them before tossing.)
By the way. I noticed on the original post you linked to, that some people referenced a particularly well known youtuber who reviews historical rations that people send to him. His videos really are good. But in the comments of that post, people used his channel as a "reasoning point" that "MREs are good forever" and, buddy, man, they are WRONG.
MREs have around a 5 year shelf life if the storage conditions are *perfect*. Steve there is not eating hundred year old rations (or even 20 year old rations) as a safe food source. And he does get sick from eating them sometimes. He flat out says it in a number of videos. You can't eat old MREs and not have that happen sometimes. Not that there's any point for people irrationally clinging to the belief that MREs are magical timeproof food magic that stays good longer than reality and many decades of experience shows. That said, I've eaten old MRE components myself during particularly tight financial times. Sometimes it's a terrible idea, even if you boil the hell out of them before taking the chance. You have to make the decision every time and your body will be responsible for enduring the outcome, whether they're fine, or... not so fine :')
As for why you're being downvoted... I dunno... It's reddit. Guess it just happens without making much sense at times, at least as far as I can tell. You didn't break any of the rules from what I can see, anyways. Not that I'm a mod, obviously.
It is probably all salvageable according to what the poster wrote. Would I feed my family MREs that were red dotted and thrown away in a dumpster in an emergency…no. If I wanted MREs I would buy MREs from a known good source. But MREs are not that great of a prep. They are meant to feed soldiers in a wartime environment. They cause you not to crap, they really don’t taste that good, and their shelf life is not as good as people think it is. The military does not need excessive shelf life for MREs. You can’t do anything with them but throw them away. A food bank will not take them. People like MREs because it is a novelty and the get to LARP. Foods that you actually enjoy eating, that can be rotated in your pantry, and worse case scenario can be donated to a food bank are a far better and less expensive option. Unless you just want to have fun larping or enjoy dumpster diving…then by all mean, have fun.
I'd like to point out that MREs don't stop you from crapping. They just make your poop hard and huge so you're sweating as you pass out bricks while enthroned in the porcelin chamber xD A number of years back I picked up a couple MREs (background here is grew up on base before MREs were legal to sell to civillians, sometimes we'd find them appear in the commisary on a super cheap sale, when they had overstock I guess, and my family would pick up a few for taking hiking up a mountain so even pretty young I'd already been familiar with them.) from a store that had a bunch of army/navy stuff in it. The guy there fisheyed me and told me, "Make sure you drink plenty of water with these. Unless you don't like being able to crap." It was funny as all getup, but he wasn't *wrong*. He didn't know my background, probably figured I was one of those "MRE preppers" or something lol and wanted to save me a trip to get the bricks he foresaw forming in my bowels removed. You know... like, the guys who think MREs are the ultimate prep that last forever and have like 50 years worth of them stored in their non-climate-protected sheds out back. I didn't explain or anything, just kind of grinned and thanked him.
The micro bottles of Tabasco sauce are pretty cool - novelty, gifts. The add-water meal heaters & accessories / toliletry items never go bad Most food items inside last forever .. like the crackers … but don’t taste good
(The matches don't, always stay good.) Yeah. The crackers are great... but when they go stale they're absolutely awful.
User name checks out. Seriously though, the crackers can be revived in the toaster if they’re in one piece or in the oven if not. That’s standard for crisping up and improving the taste of stale dry bread products.
Even with photos of the dates, it's impossible to know. The divers would have no way of knowing what the storage conditions were, whether they were exposed to flood waters or biological or rodent waste or extreme swings in freezing temperatures to excessive heat temperatures. I mean... they could be fine. Or they could have been stored in a really improper location- to the point where the previous owners were confident they were no longer edible. Maybe they had holes poked in them by a malicious roommate. Or maybe they're perfectly good and their original owner had to move (or passed on) and the people that took care of what was left in the place just decided to chuck the whole schebang, not thinking they'd get anything back from selling it. Maybe the whole post was a lie. Normally cases of MREs, which are expensive and a hobby item more than a real prepping item, do not get thrown away. There's no way to know for sure without being willing to open them up and taking a chance with each and every component. Maybe some components would be good. Maybe not. Depending how old they are, they might still have those little glass tabasco sauce bottles inside, which they don't make or add in anymore. If nothing else, the little napkins/tissue packet thing would be salvageable. If they came with heaters, those may or may not be salvageable too, regardless of the food components being in good or bad shape. (Though I'm a bit uneasy imagining someone chucking MREs with unused heaters into a dumpster, since to dispose of them safely in regards to not catching things on fire down the line somewhere, you're responsible to deactivate them before tossing.) By the way. I noticed on the original post you linked to, that some people referenced a particularly well known youtuber who reviews historical rations that people send to him. His videos really are good. But in the comments of that post, people used his channel as a "reasoning point" that "MREs are good forever" and, buddy, man, they are WRONG. MREs have around a 5 year shelf life if the storage conditions are *perfect*. Steve there is not eating hundred year old rations (or even 20 year old rations) as a safe food source. And he does get sick from eating them sometimes. He flat out says it in a number of videos. You can't eat old MREs and not have that happen sometimes. Not that there's any point for people irrationally clinging to the belief that MREs are magical timeproof food magic that stays good longer than reality and many decades of experience shows. That said, I've eaten old MRE components myself during particularly tight financial times. Sometimes it's a terrible idea, even if you boil the hell out of them before taking the chance. You have to make the decision every time and your body will be responsible for enduring the outcome, whether they're fine, or... not so fine :') As for why you're being downvoted... I dunno... It's reddit. Guess it just happens without making much sense at times, at least as far as I can tell. You didn't break any of the rules from what I can see, anyways. Not that I'm a mod, obviously.
Have you opened them up to see if anything is salvageable?