During your military career did you have the opportunity to regularly eat both C rations and MREs?

I have eaten both. The C-Rats were pretty good, more like real food. I am sure that MREs prevailed to due to their shelf life and packaging/weight. You can eat MREs for more than four days, 30 days is usually the cut off for consuming only MREs. There are not enough nutrients/vitamins to sustain the body on a strictly MRE diet. Even during combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, milk, fruit and vegetables were flown in so Soldiers could get the nutrients/vitamins they needed to stay healthy. Now, you could probably live off MREs for a long time if that's all you had, but your bones along with the rest of your body would eventually start breaking down. All you have to do is look at a Ranger School student when they come out of Florida phase.

Cpl Dennis F. Never had a chance to test out MRES. The venerable C-rats were ok, but just too bulky and heavy to carry more than a couple of heavies and a couple of lights stuffed in a sock tied to the top of yr rolled poncho

Just C Rats during my military time but tried MREs after I left... C Rats are the worst of the worse meals I ever ate in my entire 80+years including at the famous French Restaurant "Jacque In De Box"...At Vieques we had a starving dog wonder into our camp area and I was told to feed that poor dog...So I opened a C Rat can of cold Spaghetti and Meat Sauce and put it in front of this dog....He sniffed it and walked away without touching it. And I thought I've been living on that crap for 3 months and a starving dog would not eat it. Something has to definitely be wrong with C Rats beside giving you constipation, heartburn, gastric pains, and loss of muscle fiber and lack of energy to name just a few issues if you eat them for over 90 days. I wonder if all those damn C Rat gave me polyps ?? I will be willing to bet they did along with thinning hair and wrinkles because they were so bad for you in your younger years.

Source:HighlyUnreliableUSMCvets