MRE Monday - Cheese Spread & Peanut Butter & Chunky Peanut Butter

I'll be doing a trifecta of MREs that would make for a good walking lunch. A walking lunch is a backpacking term that I first learned from Larry Williams. It is a lunch that can be eaten whenever you drop your pack. No cooking and limited cleanup, and a great recharge.The current price at Emergency Essentials for each of the packages is $.75 each.

Nutritional Information:

Cheese Spread
Serving Size: 1.5 oz.
Calories: 180
Calories from fat: 150
Total Fat: 19g or 29% DV ( Daily Value )
Cholesterol: 45mg or 15% DV
Sodium: 580mg or 24% DV
Total Carbohydrates: 1g or 0% DV
Dietary Fiber: 0g or 0% DV
Sugars: 0g
Protein: 5g
Vitamin A: 90% DV
Vitamin C: 0% DV
Calcium:  15% DV
Iron: 0%

Chunky Peanut Butter & Peanut Butter

Serving Size: 1.5 oz.
Calories: 250
Calories from fat: 180
Total Fat: 21g or 32% DV
Cholesterol: 0mg or 0% DV
Sodium: 200mg or 8% DV
Total Carbohydrates: 10g or 3% DV
Dietary Fiber: 3g or 12% DV
Sugars: 4g
Protein: 10g
Vitamin A: 60% DV
Vitamin C: 80% DV
Calcium:  2% DV
Iron: 4%

Expectations:
My expectations were that they were very similar to jarred peanut butter - Jiffy or Peter Pan. The cheese spread I thought would be close to Velvetta.

Realities:
The peanut butter, chunky peanut butter, and cheese spread were served on Ritz crackers as lunch. Nothing else was available for them to snack on, except for a MRE Fruit Punch. I'll talk about each packet in their own paragraph.

The cheese spread was basically a Velvetta cheese spread. A good thing for a cheese spread to be compared with. Sweetheart thought it was "salty, decent cheese flavor". Red Ant,our 3 year old, took a small bite of the cracker with the cheese then took the packet and started to suck the cheese out of it. A very high compliment. Row, our six year old, proclaimed that "the cheese one is yummy!". I thought that the cheese spread had a decent flavor and texture.

The chunky peanut butter had a nice nutty flavor. My only complaint with the chunky peanut butter was that the chunks were very small. Sweetheart explained my disappointment very well when she said that the chunks didn't "provide a pop of flavor". Both boys actually prefer the smooth peanut butter in every day sandwich life, and didn't particularity favor this one over the smooth peanut butter.

The peanut butter was exactly the same good peanut flavor as the chunky, except that the tiny chunks were absent. The quality was excellent, as comparable to any name brand peanut butter. Red Ant summed it up very well when he said, " I like that one!".

Final Thoughts:
All three products were excellent to good quality. A problem that I have found with Emergency Storage of food supplies, is my love of cheese. While the cheese spread will somewhat satisfy this craving, it still lacks. I'll only be ordering the smooth peanut butter and a limited amount of the cheese spread to streamline the stockpile. The chunks in the chunky peanut butter weren't big enough to justify the inventory of two types. My two boys both prefer the smooth peanut butter, which is another reason to only order the smooth type. Excellent products for a "walking lunch" or a quick pick-me-up snack. Great for caches or extended wilderness trips.