I got a pack of these about 2 weeks ago and decided to test one. Mine are from 1992. After only 3 mins of adding water, that sucker was piping hot and ready to roll. NO problems at all with these, people. They work great, I'll be ordering more.

Ordered a batch of these, they were from 1984, and though followed to the letter (I'm in the Army, I've heated hundreds of meals with these) they still took about 35 minutes to even get to a lukewarm point. Given that they're about 26 years old now, I'm guessing they're just old. I probably won't order more, but at just a few bucks I guess they're worth a shot. Maybe I'll get a newer batch next time.

As the previous poster stated, read the instructions. I thought I had a bad batch but I was just too impatient. The next 3 I used worked great, you just gotta give them a few minutes to really get going.

EXACTLY AS ADVERTISED! All one needs to do is to read the instructions on the back of the heater unit and follow to the letter, that is if you can read. Worked GREAT! Great value too..............

Same experience as John. I used 2 heaters over a period of one hour and still didn't get the MRE nearly hot enough. I had a marine that I work with show me how to use them and came to the conclusion that there are a bunch of defective heaters out there.

i had the same experience with all the ones i got as john did. terrible. the old style, the nes that came in little packets of powder. those were awesome. these, terrible

Work great!

These heaters are not effective. Even when instructions are followed to the letter, it takes 30 to 45 minutes for it to begin to heat. When they do finally heat up, they don't get hot enough to heat the MRE thoroughly before they stop working. I would surmise that this is the reason they were not used for government issue. I would not purchase these items again.

I bought some of these when CTD was running a case of 288 special. I don't know what I will do with all of them but they are really handy.

This is some good stuff. I think I might get more