Army Packaged Meals

[Huey Vincent]

My friend just got back from summer reserve training, and he was joking that there were complete meals that were marked gluten-free so that my girlfriend can join the army, you know the kind of meal that's air-sealed and you only have to add water and heat it up. My friend told me they're trying to get Celiacs into the army hehe.

I just maybe thought that I'll call the army and ask them who supplies these meals and if (I doubt it) it's possible to buy some for trips. It's marked by the Canadian Army, so I doubt it'll be a problem getting it through customs because it's garanteed to be only food. So maybe bring a week's worth of real food and a few packs of these and we can go quite about anywhere.

Is it just me, or is this the miracle solution for long vacations with my friend? Has anyone else ever thought about this and tried? I'm searching around to find discussions about this.

[Montana Julie]

That's a great idea!!! Let me know what you come up with. I am searching hard for pre-packaged meals I can take camping and traveling.

By the way - I've investigated Mountain House and other camping food packages, and most contain wheat.

I used to love MRE's (yeah, I know that's weird!) when I'd go camping. Hope that gluten-free ones are out there!

I look forward to more posts on this topic!!!

Thanks for bringing this up.

Julie

[Nantzie]

My husband actually brought this up as far as emergency supplies; flood, earthquake, etc. I didn't even think to look to see if there were gluten-free MREs.

So I looked --

I'll be darned!

Here's a link that says they have some gluten-free MRE-type entree's - They're packaged like a TV dinner (with the picture and all) and are just refrigeration-free. They also have boil-in-bag packages of the same thing.

Open Original Shared Link

They say that Beef Stew, Old World Stew, "My Kind of Chicken", Chicken and Black Beans and Chicken Mediteranean are all gluten free.

They do have ingredients listed. That doesn't account for possibilities for cross contamination, but I emailed them and I'll let you know if I get a response.

BTW, look at the About Us section. They say they supply the military in the US, Canada AND the UK. These might be the same exact meals your friend told you about.

Nancy

[Nantzie]

I got a response this morning! In one part I thought she was saying that they only had one non-gluten-free meal (where I counted 5) , but when I re-read more closely, she was saying they only had one meal that had meat in it that also had gluten in it, as part of discussing the kosher rules.

I'm going to post about this also in it's own topic so that if someone is searching for information, or wouldn't think to look in this thread, it will come up more easily for them.

Here's the response --

Hi Nancy,

Thanks for writing. I started this company so as I answer, I hope you can feel how important our quality and issues related to our production are to me personally.

Since our meals are kosher, we have separate equipment of "theoretically porous" items including plastic pipe connection seal rings. All stainless steel pipes and equipment are disassembled, cleaned, not just with a standard cleaning, but cleaned individually. Then, they are left to "rest" for kosher rules for a minimum of 24 hours. In this way, any theoretical dust would settle. Then everything is either dipped in boiling water (212F) or steam cleaned on every inside and outside surface. The kettles that are boiled are then drained and rinsed out with cold water. Even the fork lift trucks, sinks, everything is steamed cleaned (212F).

Only the meat products are produced after the cleaning is complete. (The non meat meals are produced on a separate day after a similar cleaning with unique parts for those meals so we do not "contaminate" our own product. We do have one meat meal that is not gluten free. It is produced after all of the other meat meals are produced, after all the gluten free meals are finished and in sealed containers.

No other products are produced in the factory at the same time that these meals are produced. All ingredients are inspected at the door for being "permissible to enter" into the facility before being brought in. (Actually a rabbi has to check against a control list I give him - and that the chief rabbi signs off for religious reasons).

And, I am personally in production during all phases of our kosher production. This kind of care, attention and cleaning would be difficult to duplicate even at home in a small kitchen environment.

I hope this helps.

Mary Anne Jackson

President