Bored at work - Fun with a flameless ration heater

Friday was a slow day at work for a variety of reasons. The previous day, my coworkers and I had got into a lengthy discussion about MREs - Meals Ready to Eat that are distributed to the United State military. During the discussion, I was somewhat surprised my coworkers had never seen a MRE in person before. As it happened, I had on in my car that I kept for emergencies, and I resolved to bring it into work the next day. Why do I have a MRE in my car? Because you never know when you will be stuck somewhere overnight and want a hot meal. For those not familiar with what an MRE is, see this link...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat

Because MREs have a limited shelf life, you need to consume them or or throw them out after a few years. The MRE that I had was given to me a few years ago, so I knew that it was old and probably not suitable to eat. The next day, I brought it in and opened the package up for a bit of show-and-tell with my coworkers. On checking the date code on the package, we found that the ration was around 15 years old, and possibly older. Understandably, none of my coworkers wanted to try any of the food contents contained in the ration. Cowards.

Normally, that would be end end of the story, but I work with a guy that has a Physics PhD, and he became very interested in the FRH - Flameless Ration Heater, that is included with each MRE. It's a sort of chemical heater that can heat up the main food item of an MRE when you add water. After a bit of discussion, we started to wonder if a 15 year old FRH would still work. So we decided to conduct an experiment in the name of science.

Looking around my cubicle, I noticed that I had a packet of pre-cooked, shelf-stable pasta that seemed to be about the same size as as the main meal item in the MRE. This is important, because the food item will need to completely fit within the FRH bag for it to work properly. Now that we had something to heat , we decided to headed outside to the loading dock to conduct the experiment. At this point, I remember I had my GX85 camera in my backpack. I probably should have started to document this process earlier, but... oh well. It only occurred to me at this point that someone might be interested in this (or not), and it might be amusing to post on Steemit. Remember, if you are going to do something potentially stupid: "pics, or it never happened". After retrieving my camera, and gathering up the required items, we headed off to make some science happen.

Once on the loading dock with two of my interested coworkers, I set out the three required components, and prepared the experiment.

The seam on the FRH seemed to be intact, so I was encouraged that this might work. I ripped open the top of the FRH, then shoved in the pasta packet with some difficulty. At this point, we were good to go.

At this point, I added the water to the FRH bag. When checking to see if I added enough water, I noticed that I had far exceeded the fill line. Oops. Next, I set the bag on the loading dock to make sure the chemical packet inside the FRH got wet, rocking the bag back and forth a few times, then dumped out the excess water. As per instructions on the FRH, I then propped up the bag up on "a rock or something". Now the waiting begins.

From YouTube videos that I've seen in the past, I know it should take about 20 minutes to heat the food item, and that occasionally, a FRH make a minute or two to really get started. After about five minutes, the FRH was starting to get a bit warm, but not generating any steam. While not quite a "dud", I was starting to wonder if this was going to work. At this point, my coworkers lose interest, and return inside. I decided to carry on alone - A: for sake of Science, and B: because this is all I have for lunch.

After a few more minutes waiting, I notice the FRH bag inflating slightly (that's a good sign), and that part of the chemical packet is getting very hot to the touch. Unfortunately, though, the majority of the chemical packet doesn't really feel warm at all. At this point, my activities generate a bit of interest from the staff unloading a truck at the other end of the loading dock who occasionally look over in my direction with some level of interest. Realizing this might take longer than the usual 20 minutes, I move the experiment closer to the far edge of the loading dock and leave a sign warning the staff to stay away from the experiment... and my lunch, before returning inside to get some work done. No need for anyone to get hurt. Remember, safety first, people.

After giving the experiment a further 30 minutes or so, I head back to the loading dock and check on the FRH. At this point, the FRH is much cooler to the touch than previously, indicating that the chemical reaction is well past its peak. Letting the experiment continue beyond this point would simply result in colder food, so I decide to call an end to the experiment at about the 45 minute mark by removing the pasta packet from the bag and cleaning off the excess moisture (you don't want to have that chemical residue getting into your food).

The final verdict was disappointing. The pasta packet was warm, but not sufficiently hot as to be enjoyable. Clearly, a 15 year old FRH was not quite up to the task of heating my pasta. Could this failure have been due to the fact that I initially added too much water to the bag? I suppose that is one possibility, but like any good researcher, I'm going to ignore outliers in my data that don't support my intended conclusion, and that is: 15 year old FRH units don't work well. Take that Natick Labs, I'm very annoyed that your food heaters don't still work correctly a decade after the accompanying food products have expired. Very annoyed.

Now that the experiment was concluded, I still had the issue of a cold lunch to deal with. Clearly, corrective action was required if I was going to salvage something useful out of this experiment or have a satisfying lunch. So, I had to resort to other means to properly heat my meal...

By itself, a pasta packet like this is not very interesting - even when warm.Being a bit of a foodie, I keep a supply of butter in my cubicle 'fridge, as well as some himalayan sea salt and fresh pepper on my self. Sadly, I had no ground nutmeg or fresh parsley, and I eaten the reminder of my parmesan cheese block before I went on vacation, so this only ever going to be a meager meal, at best. I did have some packet parmesan that I snagged from the food court, but it wasn't quite the same. Still, butter and a bit of salt makes anything better.

So, that's it for today. I hope you actually made it to the end of this rather lengthy story of my lunch on Friday.

I normally don't like to write, but I need the practice. Let me know what you think below. If you would like to see some of my other work (mostly photography), check out my Steemit channel @rsarvas