Pizza that lasts for three years? You're not dreaming - but you will need to join the army to give it a try.
The U.S. army is currently collaborating with food scientists to incorporate pizza into the hallowed ranks of the meals ready to eat (MREs) - packaged, soldier-ready foodstuffs that need to last as long as possible without refrigeration of any kind. While the finished product hasn't yet been perfected, scientists are edging closer to an ideal product by inhibiting the production of moisture in the pizza. With the requisite tomato sauce and cheese, pizza as we know it is the ideal playground for molds of all stripes - not to mention creepy crawlies if left out too long. However, by using humectants to alter the acids in the sauce, cheese, and toppings, scientists at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center have created an environment that's hostile to bacteria. Combine that stroke of genius with iron filings in the MRE wrapper to absorb surplus air in the packaging, and they very nearly have a prototype.
"You can basically take the pizza, leave it on the counter, packaged, for three years and it'd still be edible," said food scientist Michelle Richards of the U.S. Army NSRDEC to the Associate Press. Her colleague, Jill Bates, agrees. "It pretty much tastes just like a typical pan pizza that you would make at home and take out of the oven or the toaster oven," she said. "The only thing missing from that experience would be it's not hot when you eat it. It's room temperature."
Not surprisingly, pizza has been at the top of soldier's dream foods list for some time. Apart from craving a classic comfort food when they're out on the field and far from home, such foods - such as the popular spaghetti MRE - have been recognized as something of a morale booster. "In a lot of cases, when you are cold and tired and hungry, having a hot meal that's something that you like and you would get at home, it increases your morale - and we consider that to be a force multiplier," said David Accetta, a former lieutenant colonel and current spokesman for the NSRDEC.
When they're not developing tasty MREs, scientists at the NSRDEC also fine-tunes combat armor technology, including tactical vests and body armor.
