I'm freely dating myself when I say that I never ate MREs (officially "Meals Ready to Eat", unofficially "Meals Refused by Ethiopians") during my Army days. No, I ate the old (and they were often many years old) C-Rations. Instead of foil packs, we had tin cans. Instead of chemical heat packs, we had Tabasco sauce for hot meals. Open the can, scrape off the congealed grease, pour on the Tabasco and you had a hot meal. Most of the food was so-so, some (peaches and fruit cocktail) was highly prized, and some was too horrible to even think about (10 year old canned ham and eggs come to mind).

It seems the military is continuing a 20 year effort to upgrade field rations. More power to them. Good food is very important to troops out in the field, both from a nutrition and morale perspective. I once saw a grown man almost break down in tears when he lost his prized can of peaches during a river crossing at the end of a 2-week exercise. He'd been saving and carrying those peaches for days to celebrate coming out of the field. Life gets really basic out in the field and even simple things like a can of peaches take on an importance unknown in the "real world."