Steve1989MREInfo / Steve1989 / Steve Thomas - that guy that eats old MREs

Man, those U2 food tubes... ugh. I'll take Steve's word for it that they taste good, because the stuff looks awful. Even the Estonian ration looked more appetizing.
Almost all the "dishes" sound like something that would be perfectly okay reduced to a paste and put in a tube. The one that seems a little sketchy is pepperoni pizza.
Oh, absolutely. Steve's enthusiasm is definitely one of the draws for watching him.
He's the Bob Ross of military rations.
 
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Almost all the "dishes" sound like something that would be perfectly okay reduced to a paste and put in a tube. The one that seems a little sketchy is pepperoni pizza.
Didn't conventional MRE pizza take decades and millions of dollars to achieve, too? Everybody's fighting in tanks and planes, man, but we all just want to eat some pizza... gets you thinking, y'know?

I know I keep wanting people to eat medical food, but Steve really could bring some valuable insight if he tried pureé ready meals. Either the spyplane pilots or the people with strokes have to be missing out, and they'll never know unless the man with the golden palate bridges the gap for them.
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Didn't conventional MRE pizza take decades and millions of dollars to achieve, too? Everybody's fighting in tanks and planes, man, but we all just want to eat some pizza... gets you thinking, y'know?
That was for actual fully cooked pizza, though, not for stuff in gold-lined tubes. It's really hard to make shelf-stable because even if you keep out the entire outside world, the ingredients react with each other over time.
I know I keep wanting people to eat medical food, but Steve really could bring some valuable insight if he tried pureé ready meals. Either the spyplane pilots or the people with strokes have to be missing out, and they'll never know unless the man with the golden palate bridges the gap for them.
I'm sure those influenced the tube foods, but those also had the additional issue of needing to be able to be served through a tiny tube in a feeding port in an airproof pressurized suit.
 
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My favourite thing about Steve, aside from the whole MRE thing and the Bruce Willis record on his shelf, is the little tunes he does for his video intros. You can tell they're written by someone who's not really a musician, but they have a lot of character and interesting textures. Really gets you in the mood to see what he's digging into next.
His music is weird and his merch is very 'graphic design is my passion' tier. But who cares, it works anyway.
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I'm sure those influenced the tube foods, but those also had the additional issue of needing to be able to be served through a tiny tube in a feeding port in an airproof pressurized suit.
Plus you generally want elderly people to poop, but you don't want spyplane pilots to have to bake brownies over the USSR. Like Steve noted: nothing spicy or gas-forming in the pilot rations.

I just think it'd be neat to see how different manufacturers tackled problems that seem similar, but have different goals and potentially different processes. I wonder to what extent they cribbed from each other, or if the military just hunkered down and reinvented the entire wheel.
 
I wonder to what extent they cribbed from each other, or if the military just hunkered down and reinvented the entire wheel.
They might have. The pureed canned food has a lot less issues to deal with and has to be profitable. I'd imagine these tube foods were a "money is no object" thing and it doesn't matter if they cost a grand apiece to make.
 
New video up on his channel.

1917 US Reserve Ration Preserved Hard Bread Cooking Review 24 Hour MRE Tasting Test​

It's MRE charcuterie! This is the kind of thing it'd be fun to watch Steve prepare and taste-test with a few other people. 12 other dudes sitting at a long table with him is a stretch, but it'd be neat to hear a handful of backpackers trying to match Steve's enthusiasm for a vintage fry-up.
 
Good God Almighty. The Civil War hardtack was one thing, but is this the oldest animal protein he's eaten on channel? The butter seems a bit uncharacteristic, usually he's into just using the ingredients that were originally available. I mean, I don't blame him, but it seems unnecessary judging from the way he wolfed it down. His GI tract will be in my prayers tonight.
 
Good God Almighty. The Civil War hardtack was one thing, but is this the oldest animal protein he's eaten on channel? The butter seems a bit uncharacteristic, usually he's into just using the ingredients that were originally available. I mean, I don't blame him, but it seems unnecessary judging from the way he wolfed it down. His GI tract will be in my prayers tonight.
No, he ate some biltong, I think, from the Second Boer War.
 
No, he ate some biltong, I think, from the Second Boer War.

"I'm just gonna keep chiseling away at this..." Can't believe I forgot about this one, and on a rewatch I'm doubly amazed. He's like a kid digging through a mountain of shit to find that pony he knows is lurking at the bottom.
 
With this WWI hardtack video, I'm pretty sure the canned meat he is using for the cooking portions is modern canned meat. At one point he even mentions that he's cheating by using meat with onions, when the original canned ration would have been meat only. He is just using the modern meat to demonstrate how the hardtack could have originally been used as an ingredient for a more filling meal.
 
With this WWI hardtack video, I'm pretty sure the canned meat he is using for the cooking portions is modern canned meat. At one point he even mentions that he's cheating by using meat with onions, when the original canned ration would have been meat only.
But he's opening exactly the can he showed at the beginning when he opens the ration. I think he just added the onions. He usually says when he's not eating something from the ration and why.
 
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