Everyone knows that iron rations from 1st ed D&D are pretty much t3h pwn. There was no reason for your character to ever stock up on "standard rations" when he could just automatically buy "iron rations" that were exactly the same except they didn't automatically go bad overnight as soon as you entered a dungeon. Actually, it's pretty stupid that "standard rations" were supposed to do that, but I didn't write that rule.

IIRC iron rations were described as being hard tack but I never knew for a long time where the term came from, or why your beefy barbarian is supposed to be able to feel fit and healthy fighting 30 lethal sword battles each day if the only thing he eats is crusty flour and water. I remember in Knights of the Dinner Table how Bob goes to a grocery store and asks the clerk for iron rations, and the clerk can't find any.

But Wikipedia informed me what iron rations are.



Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-ration

I guess that "iron ration" wasn't the most appropriate term for D&D, then, since iron rations are apparently referring to a specific 20th century invention, and since D&D characters shouldn't have access to pepper since there's no silk road. Unless it's an Oriental Adventures setting, I guess. They probably shouldn't have access to sweetened chocolate either since in medieval times sugar was supposed to be rare and prized.

What, we can have orks, dragons, and wizards with the ability to teleport and fly but we can't find pepper for our meats?

You're trying to apply logic to D&D, especially 1st edition. You're doing nothing but inviting mental anguishing.

Sure, because it has to do with setting. You can't put pepper on your meat for the same reason you must use a Holy Avenger to kill the wizard, and you can't just pull a .45 and blow his head off instead.

Now, if you want to kill the wizard with a .45 and put pepper on your meat at the same time, you must play Shadowrun.

But wouldn't it be soypepper?

Actually, they have included pepper in the 3.5 PHB.

I have also seen it written that with the tack bread they would usually dip it in coffee or water to soften it and sometimes had jam, molasses or honey.

I've always described Iron Rations as being more like the rations issued to sailors before refrigeration. In other words hard biscuits, and dried meat. Standard Rations on the other hand are breads, cheeses, and meat like sausages that is smoked, but not dried.

Also, while the term "iron rations" is an American invention records of similar types of rations (minus the chocolate) were recorded during the 30 years war. Pasteurization and canning as forms of preservation were invented for Napoleons army and even the Crusaders had some fairly effective food preservation techniques during the 11th and 12th centuries. I expect that the term "Iron Rations" was used in part because D&D grew out of wargaming, some of which have remarkably complicated rationing/supply systems and because it was a phrase that would be easily identified and understood by the reader.

Oh yeah, sigged.

The highest honor a DSFer can get. IIRC in the past I sigged something you said. The circle is complete and the 80s pseudo philosophy has been engaged towards fueling Shadowrun.

Goddamit, I was gonna sig that. Now I'd just be a biter if I did that.

Maybe I'll just have my street sam inexplicably carry an old-style 45 and packets of pepper instead. And have him hate wizards.

Iron rations is a pretty common term, but the contents have improved with time.
Today it's MRE's
in the mid-20th centruy it was K-rations and C-rations. (K was semi dried in boxes, C were canned. and the emergency D rations- highly concentrated coholate

In WW1 and earlier it was hardtack- a bread/biscuit dried so hard it was almost impossible to break with teeth. and dried meats and fruit- beef jerky, dried cod and fruit cake are all examples.

I think hardtack is t3h pwn, by the way. I have made it myself (using white flour) a couple of times just because I was so excited about the concept. One summer I even tried to live on it for a week but that didn't go well, probably because I was using white flour. It was the equivalent of trying to live on saltines.

aka The Devil's Flour. That stuff has no or minimal nutritional value.

Mmm... Wonder Bread! Eating nothing but hardtack (especially if it's just the flour biscuit deals) is a recipe for disaster, without vitamin supplements you can develop all manner of fun and exciting disorders like... scurvy of all things.

Bleh to hardtack. We whine enough about MRE's and those are vaguely warm and look mostly like real (cafeteria) food.

Actually the latest generation of MRE's is pretty good, they have some new menus items and better extra stuff inside of them. I will also note that they lose their novelty fairly quickly and it's an odd bird who enjoys eating them for more than a couple of weeks. I, for one, cannot imagine eating MRE's for 6+ months (especially if you only had menu 1-12).

But stay away from the omelet, that shit is horrible, it's like powered eggs mixed with HELL.

Sounds like the C rations (i.e. canned dinners) must have been tastier than. I've happily lived on canned pasta products for extended periods of time myself. I have a burning curiosity to know if Chef Boyardee is similar to the spaghetti and meatball C ration or not. I imagine it would have to be as all canned spaghetti tastes very similar.

After a quick google search I wasn't able to find nutritional values for C-rations but I'd imagine they taste a little different than Chef Boyardee as commercial canned pasta is heavily loaded with sugar.

When my dad was in Vietnam he loved either the fruitcake or the pineapple upside down cake (cant remember which) that came in the c-rats. He told me since he didn't smoke he used to trade his cigarettes for the cake. He also told me two very important rules in the Army, especially when in-country.

#1 NEVER take off your helmet. EVER.

#2 NEVER volunteer. For anything.

MRE's ain't bad, but if you're going to be eating them for long periods of time, keep your activity levels up, especially if you're eating the winter MRE's. The winter ones have about 3000 calories each!

It was odd, since power-bars didn't really exist back when I was playing DnD originally, but once they came out, I always figured Iron Rations were sorta like that. Really disgusting power-bars that you could keep in your drawer and theoretically use in emergency.

Heh, I always ended up being food conscious for my characters. Not "Minding my weight" kinda conscious but "I really need to have a secure, ready food supply in case the GM starts messing with us". Enter Murlunds Spoon (Spelling?) that magical spoon that you put into a pot or cup or bowl and it makes gruel. Omni-gruel useable by all types of eaters, herbivores, carnivores, etc. Sure it looks and tastes like wet cardboard, but its chock fulla nutrients and vitamins. Usually I'd chip in gold for one of those, and some spices/sweeteners.

Actually, it sounds like it would really make sense for every household to have some MREs handy in case of natural disaster. Do you know how someone could go about acquiring some MREs?

Actually you cannot legally buy or sell official MRE's. However you can purchase unofficial MRE's that are just as good. A good place to look would be military surplus stores and catalogs. It's amazing the kind of stuff you can find there.

I'll be sure to do that.

Someone was running a military surplus tent at a local fair near here and they were selling some MRE's there. Not a great selection of meals, but you take what you can get.

I just had an MRE for the first time last week. Clam chowder in a plastic bag ... oh yeah baby ... good stuff. The "Chocolate Milk" left a little to be desired, but the "beef pork rib" and the "vanilla pound cake" (I use quotations because just 'cause that's what it said on the bag, don't make it so) were actually pretty good. Damn thing even had chiclets to freshen up my breath (incase of needs for up close hostage negotiations I guess), matches, salt, and handy wipes. No damn pepper though. Go figure.

I just had an MRE for the first time last week. Clam chowder in a plastic bag ... oh yeah baby ... good stuff. The "Chocolate Milk" left a little to be desired, but the "beef pork rib" and the "vanilla pound cake" (I use quotations because just 'cause that's what it said on the bag, don't make it so) were actually pretty good. Damn thing even had chiclets to freshen up my breath (incase of needs for up close hostage negotiations I guess), matches, salt, and handy wipes. No damn pepper though. Go figure.

"beef pork rib" should be someone's SN.

That's not exactly true. While the DOD requires that "U.S. Government Property Commercial Resale is Unlawful" be printed on every MRE, there isn't actually any law against it. If they were stolen, sure, reselling them would be illegal, but if you obtain them through legitimate channels then it is no different from cutting the tag off of a mattress.

Apparently, you can find MREs on Ebay, though it seems that most sellers cut open the bags and portion them out to get more money.

Our "emergency rations" generally were a pack of black chocolate, and a pack of biscuits. We also had some cans with ready meals, to be heated (or blown up if you didn't open them) over an "emergency heater", usually some sort of stew I think.
I read about the MRE's in the 90s, and I was sure I'd have liked those to what we had, and even some of our regular food in the army.

#2 is a lie, volunteer for "everything" or you will be volun-told. If you're busy doing something else you're less likely to get goated for doing some screwy, dangerous, stupid last minute shit. It's called "Progressive skating", if you are off in a dark corner "working" on something you don't present the same target as 6 guys playing cards and shooting the shit. The last thing you want to hear is "We need X bodies. Oh hey, it doesn't look like YOU are doing anything right now."

@fistandantilus4.0: Pepper only comes in most of the menus and the treasured red pepper/cayenne is only one or two of them. The wheat bread was better for it sold out and wasn't sweet anymore. Oh yeah, the cheese is better when it's warm and tastes delicious when mixed in with a number of the meals (kneading it is vital to not wanting to die when you eat it). I usually slip it in next to the main meal when I'm "cooking".



Supposedly the Australian have the best "MRE's" in the world. They come in this uh... stocking looking bag (it's plastic but the fucking thing is huge) and it holds, if I recall, several days worth of food. Food supposed to be top notch and the fact that you have several different meals means it's easier to mix and match for what you actually want to eat in a single go. I was also given to understand that it comes with some sort of one use stove that's a bit more effective than the chemicals heaters I'm used to. Of course I'm of the school of thought that most people are retarded about their chemical heaters and they don't add the right amount of water/mix it with the heater properly.

I haven't gotten my hands on a Japanese MRE but I can tell you that their field messing if spectacular. The have a cart that apparently makes soba (delcious ramen like noodle dish, usually pork/fish based) in the field, with all the fixings. That's a sight better than the uh... field meals or whatever they're called that are basically oversized MRE's that get warmed up and poured into trays.

Other fun MRE facts: Most of the calories in an MRE are actually in all the random crap that ISN'T the main meal. Main meals are usually only 300-500 calories but the uber peanut butter (just a little tube) is 580 calories or near about. Generally speaking you only eat the main meal when/if you have time and the rest you tote around with you since "Chow in the field is continuous". The "wheat bread" is particularly potent and we once calculated that an MRE PB&J sandwich (two pieces of wheat bread, a tube of peanut butter, jelly/jam of your choice) weighed in at close to 2k calories... This is why MRE's are "fighting food" because I can tell you from personal experience that sitting around in the humvee eating 2-3 of them a day is a fantastic way to put on 5-10 pounds in a week. In fact I've seen a lot of people refer to eating only the main meal as "The MRE Diet" because you get something approaching a normal caloric intake.

I happen to really like the "Milkshakes", they're delicious and basically meal replacements/protein shakes (which I've been told was the design intent). It's a bit of an art to mixing them though, I like mine on the thicker side but that disgusts most people.

So, if I ever enlist I should volunteer for stuff. Got it. But I still should not take off my helmet, right? Oh, and not be one of the idiots who tries to pull a grenade pin with my teeth.

No you really aren't supposed to take off your helmet, your flak, our remove your weapon from your person.

I've also been advised not to touch anything. Ever, like the whole time you're in Iraq or Afghanistan you should just keep your dirty mitts to yourself.

Unless you're EOD... but then it's kinda your job.

The wheat bread and "cheese" was awesome together. Although, I have to admit I was a bit disconcerted about the cheese. I had about 5 inches of it hanging out of the package in one long looige-like string, and the damn thing just would NOT fall, despite some serious shaking on my part. That's some damn hearty cheese. Tasty though.

How many did you get to eat? You haven't had "The Military Experience" until you've dropped an MRE shit.

Seriously, all that "fortification" has to go somewhere and for most people... it isn't out.

I swear, you have to drink a retarded amount of water to keep everything moving, lot of salt in those MRE's.

It sounds like "The Military Experience" should be doing a Saving Private Ryan thing where your desperate squad of isolated infantry must use their ultra-gummy MRE shit to stick socks filled with explosives to damage enemy tanks which are rolling around the city.

Gummy? It would be glorious if it was gummy... that indicates a certain amount of... moisture present in said excrement.

MRE shits could probably be sharpened and used as a pointy stick.

Okay that's exaggerating but jesus... sometimes.

Note: I've been told (and I tend to agree) that the MRE wrappers (the brown outer one) make excellent material for a four-sided occlusive dressing (duct tape... FTW!). It may not be an Asherman Chest Seal but it'll certainly keeps the air on the outside and your insides on the inside.

The story I heard about them Doc is that they make a good emergency seal for a sucking chest wound. Watertight and airtight. And supposedly the heater element can be made into some kind of improvised munitions. Never tried it, but I heard about it. MRE's are way better than a "Box lunch" though. Cold lunch meat sandwich, cold chicken leg, maybe a candy bar, juice box or "chocolate milk flavored drink"(yes, that was the name of it). Would rather have had MRE's any time I had a box lunch.

That's what a four-sided occlusive dressing is for . I've, thankfully, never had to apply one outside of training but the material is just about perfect for it. Thick enough that it won't randomly tear but supple enough that it actually conforms to the chest without leaving holes. Plus it naturally comes in "Tactical brown" so you haven't duct taped a giant target to your patients chest. The MRE heater as an improvised munition is... sketchy. I've never heard of anyone seriously using it that way but I will say that: MRE heater+20 oz bottle+water=Terrific explosion sound. One guy got so good making MRE bombs that he created one that exploded loud enough to summon base police (and almost took a trip to see the old man). I guess you could hurt someone with one but you'd probably be better off beating them with a rock or something.

We call those "bag nasties" and I've never been a fan. It's like the worst part of your local 7-11 dumped into a bag. Cold breakfast sandwiches and mystery meat on limp bread isn't very fun. Plus they're frozen half the time. Sometimes they even manage to screw up the cookies.

I happen to enjoy MRE's for what they are, field food, and nothing more.

Yeah, don't get me wrong. I didn't actually buy any of those MRE's at that military surplus tent. It's good enough food if that's all you got, but we have grocery stores where I live.

I concur The novelty wears off pretty rapidly after you've eaten through a meal set.

I hear they bounce. Is that true?

A former boss of mine told me a glorious tale of NTC in Fort Irwin, you know one big desert with MILES of visibility. He didn't crap for a week straight, and being all alone at a retrans site when he finally did it was using an improvised toilet made of the cardboard wrapper for the box.

It took so long that an enemy armor column appeared on the horizon, rolled up past his position, 'killed him' and kept moving until it was out of sight over the OTHER horizion before he was actually done.


My advice to anyone looking into eating/acquiring MRE's is to shoot for the vegetarian meals. Me? I'm a carnivore through and through but after a month or two of nothing but MRE's you start to appreciate the general better quality of the Vege meals and the fact that they have the 'best goodies'.

Though: The salisbury steak with the cayanne pepper did keep me alive when a bunch of people were going down to one or more of the 13 sorts of diarhea (sp?) common in Iraq. Ah... memories. Now I'm craving M&M's that have melted into a single blob of chocolaty death...

I have two buddies who were in the reserves - they strongly agree with your assessment of the vegetarian MREs. Having sampled some of the "extras" they brought back, I'd have to agree. They're not too bad, really - about on par with a cheap microwave dinner. They're certainly better than the horror stories I've heard about MREs.

They tell tales of swapping MRE ingredients to make thinks like coffee mochas, cracker PBJs, etc.

-paws

I honestly don't see peoples problem with the veggie omlet ( meal 4 if you're interested). If you can get onto a military post they sell mres at the commisary.

Honestly I'd advise staying away from the chicken meals, with the exeception of chicken with noodles.

So, I'm getting the impression that if I were to want to build up an emergency supply of food for the home, that I should stay away from MREs, because they prevent you from pooping.

So what would a better alternative be? C rations left over from the Vietnam War and a box of Japanese navy crackers?

Non-perishable canned foods, a wide variety of them. Rations are designed not just to keep but to be portable. Meeting the portability requirements that allows the army to stay fed on the move requires sacrifices, and as a result such things aren't usually suitable for long-term consumption. There is a reason permanent and semi-permanent encampments have cooks and mess facilities, it isn't just a matter of comfort.

So, if you're going to build yourself a survivalist bunker, or just some backups in case your fridge stops working, go with canned fruits, beans, meats if you're brave, cereals, powdered milk, stuff that doesn't expire, enough for a balanced diet, and a camping stove to cook it on in the event of infrastructure collapse. Basically, the sort of stuff that the Salvation Army accepts in its food drives. The important things are that it is nutritious and non-perishable.

The MREs and rations still have their use. Put them in your bug-out kit, the bag you grab when Godzilla or an equivalent disaster is heading to your town and you need to get out yesterday.

Regular non-perishable foods are for when you have nothing better to do than to sit around telling ghost stories waiting for the power to be restored. MREs are for when you have to go with just the clothing on your back and what you can carry.

just pack 'em with fiber bars The real problem with MREs is they are very expensive for their amount. To stock up enough to survive for any reasonable amount of time (i.e. years), you'll go broke.

You'll probably want quite a few pounds of wheat, especially red wheat, and a manual grinder. Gallons and gallons of fresh water + water purification/filtration gear. Canned goods, vitamins, etc. You'd need to make a full list. MREs are pretty well balanced, but have tons of calories. If you're going to balance your own stocks, you'll need to do some research. I'd suggest survivalblog.com and the LDS (Latter Day Saints) canning site. Both have very good information.

Don't forget the Spam!
From the Hormel FAQ site


Last month, I was cooking some noodles, veggies, and Spam in a microwave in the work pantry and a coworker walks by and asks what it is since it smelled great. I told her and she was horrified that Spam was part of the ingredients.

See, Spam isn't even a joke or irony for me. I ate buckets of that stuff in the Peace Corps in the Pacific.

The Australia CR1M's tend to avoid that a little bit more with a high amount of dried fruit and cereal content making up the bulk of the meals along with a bit of high protein meat meal in there, they come in 8 different types packed in a baggie about the size of a ziplock freezer bag. About the best thing about them is the condiments, you get a tonne of sauces and jams to make things taste sorta like those instead of a rock which has a half life of 11million years.

A related MRE story - when we I was a diplomat's kid in Venezuela, we invited the Marine security guard detachment over for Thanksgiving. My dad thought he was so funny, he put out MREs at all the place settings.

Fortunately, none of the Marines were armed at the time, because the looks they gave were dangerous enough!

(But yes, we fed them actual t-day food, with enough to bring back for those on watch).