Private pizza: Military meal that lasts three years almost ready

AP via Fox News ^ | 2/14/14

[Kartographer]

They call it the holy grail of ready-to-eat meals for soldiers: a pizza that can stay on the shelf for up to three years and still remain good to eat.

Soldiers have been asking for pizza since lightweight individual field rations — known as meals ready to eat, or MREs — replaced canned food in 1981 for soldiers in combat zones or areas where field kitchens cannot be set up.

[Kartographer]

MRE Pizza? Hmmmmm.......

[Kartographer]

Ping!

[TADSLOS]

....as long as it comes with Tabasco.

[Army Air Corps]

Preppers take note...

[MNDude]

I believe they got it from Chuck E Cheese.

[Kartographer]

What they should do is have a meal that nothing but tabasco. ;-)

[A Navy Vet]

Not sure Mooshcele is going to approve.
Pizza bad; lettuce and kale good, as the kids in her program are throwing away such.

[Secret Agent Man]

“good to eat”

probably a little too relative of a term for an mre pizza with a 3-yr shelf life.

[Moonman62]

Turkey pepperoni pizza also will be available for soldiers who do not eat pork products.

I wonder if they had Jews in mind.

[colorado tanker]

Impressive.

They sure have come a long way from ham and egg C-Rats.

[PowderMonkey]

MRE. Not just a meal. It’s an adventure. Scariest MRE I ever consumed was a six-year old ration of tuna and noodles. Lived to tell about it.

[PeteB570]

I’m getting some of the newer lots and I will say, for the most part, they are better than the ones we got in the 1980’s.

BUT - that for “regular” meals. The more they try to get fancy with the meals the worse it tastes.

I think Pizza will be the same. Great idea but just don’t think it will come out of the pouch very well.

[wally_bert]

Only had a few but liked the spaghetti version. There is no such thing as edible tuna in my book.

[Starstruck]

....as long as it comes with Tabasco.

I was pre-MRE, but if there was any chance of having to eat C-rations, I always carried a bottle of hot sauce.

[Kartographer]

I didn’t know that there were ‘Amish’ soldiers? ;-)

[TADSLOS]

I had both. Tabasco was dummy corded to my ruck.

[Sir Napsalot]

Forget about ‘last three years’, do they taste fresh NOW?

[PowderMonkey]

During Vietnam, the McIlhenny Tabasco folks heard how much our guys appreciated their product with their rations of "Muthas' and Ham." So, the company arranged to air drop cases of their Tabasco sauce to men in the FOBs. On each wooden case, they had stenciled the words: "Life has a special flavor, to those who fight for it." McIlhenny's. I accept no substitutes.

[Sir Napsalot]

>>> You can basically take the pizza, leave it on the counter, packaged, for three years and it’d still be edible,” said Michelle Richardson, a food scientist at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center.

See what I mean? “Edible” don’t sound too good to me.