Vehicle kit and MRE suggestions

[Mortblanc]

If you want a decent meal pass on the MRE packs, the original military ones are tricky since they are government product and not made for civilian sale. What civilians usually get are factory seconds. They are usually extremely expensive for what you get.

The aftermarket ones are sketchy. Bad food choices, bad packing and often bad flavor.

In your situation I would go with a commercial canned meal. A canned stew of good quality or some good chunky soup. Add a canned bread and some sort of pudding and you will be set. Toss in a couple of cans of tuna and canned fruit and you would be good for a couple of days.

Add some condiment packs. Salt, pepper and sauce packs go a long way to spicing up your road kill meals.

There is no need to look for a 30 year shelf life. Rotating the meal out each 2-3 years should be no big trouble. You should be shifting your gear/food/water from summer pack to winter pack at the season changes so just replace your meals at that time.

I would also swap the water purification out for a Life Straw or a Sawyer Mini. They are low cost, 100% reliable, no shelf life, and good for more than a year of drinking water for one person. I keep a Life straw in the glove box of my rig and a Sawyer in the big kit in the boot. The Sawyer will screw directly to a commercial water/soda bottle for direct filtering.

Tablets are a 150 year old technology and they have a shelf life. They add taste to the water and require a wait time to work in the water.

I would also recommend that you expand your cooking gear. Add a good sized tin billy of a liter or two. You are in a vehicle, no need for everything to be barely large enough to use. You can also take more than a "small cache" of tea and coffee. Throw a small jar of instant coffee in there, as well as a good zip lock bag of tea bags.