Meal, Ready-to-Eat

The concept of battlefield Meals Ready to Eat, or "MREs" for short, has not changed much over the past six hundred years. MREs are carried aboard UNSC starships for use on the battlefield. A conventional MRE contains a single meal, consisting of pre-cooked food which has been vacuum sealed into plastic containers or pouches so as to prevent spoiling. These MREs are designed so that the contents are good for months, or even years, if need be. MREs are typically used in areas of combat where constructing a kitchen facility is not possible, or practical, due to time or safety constraints. Each HEV's stores a number of MREs for the landed ODSTs. The 130 ODSTs who landed on Installation 04 had ample supplies to set up Alpha Base, including MREs.

Contents
MRE's have conventionally contained a number of food items, and there are usually dozens of different "menus" and variations so that not every MRE contains the same meal. This is so that soldiers may have a variety in their Diets while in a hostile area. Some of the materials that could be found in an MRE may include:


 * Rations
 * Stim-Packs
 * Protein Bars
 * Instant Coffee
 * Nutritional Supplements
 * Candy Bars
 * Moist towels
 * Heating unit (made of magnesium and iron dust mixed with salt to produce high temperatures when combined with water)
 * Matches
 * Salt, pepper and sugar
 * Toilet paper

The opinion of MRE's in the Halo Universe is unknown, however many military autobiographies in the Early 21st century recorded negative opinions, being somewhat nasty to eat.