MRE Tasting Videos

Submission 34,296

Part of a series on Reaction Videos. [View Related Entries]

About

MRE Taste Videos are YouTube videos in which a person tastes and reviews a MRE (Meal, Ready-to-eat), a packaged product made for the United States military.^[1] The videos tend to be popular and often end up trending on YouTube.

Origin

On April 17th, 2011, YouTube user gschultz9 uploaded a video of his daughter trying an MRE (shown below). The video has gained over 2,300 views and inspired him to record more videos centered around MREs.

Spread

gschultz9

gschultz9 was the first YouTuber to start a series of MRE taste videos. His first proper review was published on May 10th, 2011, and it was of a chicken breast from 2003 (shown below).

Over the next 6 years, gschultz9 posted dozens of videos of him eating and reviewing MREs. His most popular to date with over 660,000 views shows him eating "Astronaut Food" (shown below).

Spread Through Youtube

After a few years, other YouTubers began posting MRE taste videos with higher production values. On August 14th, 2014, popular YouTube food-reviewer emmymadeinjapan uploaded a video of her trying her first MRE in a video that gained over 900,000 views (shown below).

Another popular account devoted to reviewing MREs is Steve1989MREinfo, who began reviewing MREs in late 2015.^[2] AtlasObcura^[3] covered the global fascination and YouTube community surrounding MREs on May 2nd, 2016.