The concept of battlefield Meals Ready to Eat, or MREs for short, has not changed much over the past six hundred years. MREs are carried aboard UNSC starships for use on the battlefield. The conventional MRE consists of a meal of prepared food vaccum sealed into plastic containers. these MREs are designed so that the food is good for months, even years, if need be. The food feeds soldiers on a field of action where there is not sufficent time or safety to build kitchen facilities for the soldiers to eat.
each Human Entry Vehicle stores a number of MREs for the landed ODSTs. The 130 ODSTs who landed on Installation 04 had ample supplies to set up Alpha Base, including MREs.