DIY Field Rations! 22 Meals for under $50.00!

DIY Rations is a fantastic alternative to expensive manufactured rations. Be they military rations or freeze-dried backpacking meals, they are very pricey are getting more expensive due to high demand.
Military rations have become more of an entertaining novelty over the past several years due to the popularity of YouTube personalities such as steve1989. The U.S. Military MREs offer a large variety of menus, however, due to this variety it is difficult to find one in which one will eat everything in the package. With the average purchased by the case price being in excess of $12.00 a meal, items not consumed is money wasted.
I recently went to our nearest Ollie's closeout store and spent 15 to 20 minutes gathering food items I thought would work well for field rations. A full cart wound up costing $58.00. I was able to assemble 22 complete meals that averaged out to about 1150 calories each. Once I had assembled all that I wanted to, I still had enough left over items to assemble 5 more and still have left over items.
When it was all said and done, what I assembled was 27,182 calories worth of packaged rations. That is equivalent to 21.7 MREs or $260.40. My estimated expense of the items used in the rations was around $45.00. That is a $215.40 difference. With the guarantee that I like every food item in the lot!
I share the entire process of making my DIY Rations and offer alternatives that might suit some better.
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