Steven Andrew Thomas,, known online as Steve1989MREInfo or Steve1989, is an American YouTuber and military ration commentator, best known for his YouTube video content, which mainly consists of videos of Thomas unboxing and taste-testing old, obscure, or foreign military field rations.
Early life
Thomas's interest in military rations began in 1997 when his father purchased a case of US rations from an Army Navy Store. The first ration Thomas ate from the case was a ham slice meal manufactured in 1993, which he ate cold because he did not know how to use the heating device.
Internet career
Steve began his YouTube channel in November 2015 and first gained notoriety in January 2016 for a video in which he ate 61-year-old peanut butter from a Korean War-era Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Later that year, a video review of Steve eating American Civil War-era hardtack from 1863 went viral. Steve has opened, eaten and reviewed a variety of military chocolate, including the notorious World War II-era D ration and Tropical Bar, both manufactured by the Hershey Company. Prior to 1975 several U.S. military rations contained cigarettes, and Steve does smoke and review the cigarettes in older rations, with the oldest cigarette smoked being a Chelsea-brand cigarette dating to 1942, making it 75 years old when it was smoked. He has reviewed rations from the British Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Navy, Russian Special Forces and both vintage and contemporary rations from a wide variety of armed forces from all over the world. Steve took a brief hiatus in the middle of 2020 due to injuring tendons in his right arm, according to his pinned YouTube comment in the comment section of his video, "1993 US MRE Smoked Frankfurters Review Vintage Meal Ready to Eat Tasting Test". As soon as the brace was removed from his arm, he made the video. Despite eating rations that are well beyond the recommended shelf life specified by Natick Laboratories and other manufacturers, Steve has reported that he rarely becomes ill, though he did contract E. coli and had to be hospitalized in 2015, ironically from a ration that was actually within its shelf life. Steve described a cheese spread from a 1987 MRE as "the grossest thing I've ever tasted, because it literally felt like fire. And bitterness." Because many of the rations Steve opens are extremely rare, he has stated that he will only review a ration once he has obtained a duplicate that will remain unopened in a private collection. His video voice-overs have gained traction within his subscriber community for their calm delivery, and signature catch-phrases such as "nice hiss", and "let's get this out onto a tray. Nice!" referencing laying out the ration items onto a table, before hard-cutting to them neatly arrayed on a military-style food tray. Despite his dedication to military rations, Steve has not served in the military.
