I like them!

I use them all the time while hiking and every once and a while when hunting. Unless I am spending the night out doors hunting I can get by with just some snacks in my pack. But if I'm spending the night outdoors no matter if it's hiking or hunting I bring MRE's. I have also found that you can greatly reduce the carry out garbage by burning the paper based inner containers, (not the plastic) this will leave you with little to carry out. What is not burned I just put back into the main pouch, roll it up and stuff into a zip lock.

I use the water heater sometimes but mostly I use an esbit stove and some trioxane fuel bars. Just half will give you enough burn time to heat your meal, it also serves as a great fire starter in damp conditions because the trioxane will burn for approx. 10min. Oh, and once the trioxane has burned out, it leaves little residue and cleans up easy. I use a military canteen cup to cook in, it stores on the bottom of the canteen and all fit into the canteen soft case.

The water activated heater is fine but sometimes I like to add in crackers, salt, pepper, tobasco, etc... to the meal while cooking and you can't do that with the pouch heater. Or if the meal is thick I can add a little water to it.

MRE's are a great product and I allways have a case or two laying around.