Hi Dave,

Sounds like they made some improvements over those things since I was in. Never had a "Beef Ravioli".

I remember the fudge brownie, apple sauce, crackers, cheese spread, hot chocolate and the pouch with Tabasco sauce, gum, toilet paper, matches and spoon...

The cheese was a government experiment and was tied in with the tiny piece of toilet paper... One or two servings of cheese and crackers and you were sufficiently plugged up for about a week without much need for the TP.

We use to heat our meals on the back of the tank which I'm sure yielded similiar results to the helicopter exhaust (both turbine engines..). One difference was that we burned diesel and this left a nice film of diesel fuel on top of your coffee, beef etc. I'm sure JP4 wasn't much better tasting..

The dehydrated beef was really the best. Between the dehydrated ketchup dust, some cheese and the crackers, you had yourself a small pizza. If you mixed the coffee creamer with a little sugar and water and baked it on the back of the tank you had a cookie for afterwards.

Your absolutely right though, I usually had to eat two or three before I was "ok" for the meal.

I would like to point out that when I was in the desert and drinking 5+ gallons of water a day to keep from passing out... opening up a "dehydrated" meal seemed a bit counter productive...