Hah, I'm a big fan of his as well. It's a very small and weird internet world. I never thought that MREs would be something that's interesting enough to subscribe to.

It's ironic because he's a gourmet of the ultimate pre-packaged food. And he's so infectiously enthusiastic about it, even when something tastes nasty he's so upbeat about it.

"Hmm... yeah... that definitely tastes a little off... (another bite, chews thoughtfully) yeah that's definitely starting to go... /nods sagely as he chews."

"(opens bulging can of creamed corn) Oh yeah that stuff definitely has botulism... the smell is AWFUL! /shit eating grin"

The ration depicted there is not entirely representative of a 2009 manat krav. At the end of the video you can see there's a note referring to how the loof/spam is "10 years old" since it is dated to 2006. In reality it expires in 2006, making it likely to be a 2005-2006 ration (loof lasts 1.5 years IIRC).

In my experience with rations around 2009 you can expect them to contain:

1. Less Tuna (which is actually bad IMO, the tuna is the most important part :))

2. Possibly Sardines

3. Salted peanuts (to my understanding, meant as a tuna replacement for vegeterians/vegans)

4. Possibly pickles instead of olives

5. Hummus spread (which is awful)

6. "Vegeterian spread" (which is inedible, and it is unclear to me what it is actually made of)

7. The canned halvah is most often replaced with a vanilla halvah bar (which is sweeter than the one he ate)

8. The chocolate spread he showed was the rare good kind, there was also another version that came in a plastic container and was awful (has a sand-like texture).

So less tuna than you saw, though I still wouldn't recommend it.

At around 2010 (I think) they realized the rations were terrible and decided to revise them. I'm not sure exactly what is in those now, but I know the legendary loof which no one wanted to eat was replaced with goulash, which looks horrible (would you really like to eat unidentified meat chunks floating in liquid fat?) but is not bad in practice.

Corrections to the video: The chocolate halvah spread he showed is just a chocolate spread (actually named "cocoa spread", probably since for kosher reasons it contains no milk). The powdered juice he had was raspberry flavored (I don't think any other flavors are actually available).

Some extra lore: To get the loof to come out you need to slightly open the other side so air can get sucked in. Since you are not supposed to put sugar in your canteens (they'll start to smell and you'll have to clean them) the sugar and juice powder are often added to the halvah or chocolate. How you are supposed to make tea I don't know. If you can manage it (usually not in actual combat situations), you partially open the can of tuna so the oil seeps out, cover it with some toilet paper and light it on fire, the TP acts as a wick sucking the oil out, and the flames cook the tuna (assuming you set several cans up together and enclose them with stones etc.), leading to an improved experience. Another possibility is to stick the tuna and loof into your tank's engine for a slow roast. As for the can opener, you'll notice there's only one. The first thing you'll learn in basic training when you encounter a manat krav is to keep the can opener for the next one so you can start opening them more quickly. Another is that in a real combat situation you'd rather bring your own since these are kind of terrible.

Yah, that's too much tuna. But I want some of that Halva LOL :)