Ready-to-eat meals are becoming a very popular option for people who want to stock up on their emergency disaster kits. And why not? If it’s good enough for the US military to feed soldiers in the field, it should be good enough for civilians as well. The problem, however, is that military MREs are not available for commercial resale to the public. However, that hasn’t stopped military MRE cases from popping up for sale online or in military surplus stores. Obviously, if there is a demand for things, people will supply them.

Since there is a general public demand for MREs, manufacturers are also producing a civilian version of these convenience foods. The question is, how do civilian MREs compare to military MREs? The answer is that there is not much difference. After all, it is the same companies that supply their MREs to the US military. They are simply expanding their market to civilians.

While military MREs go through more stringent testing with their packaging requirements, you should also realize that they are made to withstand parachute drops and extreme temperature ranges. You have to ask yourself, do you really need to drop your food from a height of thousands of feet? Or go through freezing temperatures or extreme heat? If the answer is no, then you don’t need military MREs.

You may also be wondering about the caloric differences between the civilian version and the military version. While it’s true that military meals average around 1,200 calories each, civilian versions aren’t far off at 1,000 calories. This is for a single pack. If you have one for each of your three meals, you’ll consume 3000 calories per day, which is more than enough for even an active male individual.

Civilian MREs are a good choice for the public, as there’s really no need to go all out with a military version. In fact, when you buy civilian MREs, you’re probably going to get a better quality product because you don’t know where the military MRE came from or how it was stored, since it wasn’t purchased from a direct source.

Those are the pros and cons of military and civilian MREs. Whichever version of MRE you choose, it’s always a good idea to keep a case at home for emergencies.