While the US Armed Forces’ notorious Meals Ready to Eat, or MREs, have improved over the years, there’s still one fond wish of soldiers everywhere: Pizza. To the credit of the Pentagon, they’ve spent years trying to perfect the MRE pizza. And they were so, so close, but it turns out the indestructible pizza isn’t quite ready yet.
To give you an idea of what this pizza has to go through, it needs to be able to be fall nearly ten stories (and remain edible) and last three and a half years on the shelf before being replaced. It’s that last part that’s the problem: According to Defense News, the military tested its pizza by leaving it in a box for six months in temperatures of 100° F, and it turned brown…so it’s back to the drawing board.
The good news is that it’s not a food issue so much as a flavor issue; apparently once the pizza turns brown, it becomes something rather unappetizing. Researchers also need to work out the logistics of turning out indestructible pizzas you can eat on a mass production scale, so this might take a while. But there’s some good news, too: Caffeinated Slim Jims are on the way this year!
(Via Gizmodo)
