In this Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014 photo, a packet containing a slice of prototype pizza is displayed by public affairs officer David Accetta at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, in Natick, Mass.
Researchers at a U.S. military lab are getting closer to perfecting what some call “the holy grail” of food prepared for soldiers: a pizza that stays edible for up to three years and does not require refrigeration or freezing, the Associated Press reports.
“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,” Jill Bates, who runs the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center in Natick, Massachusetts, told the AP. “The only thing missing from that experience would be it’s not hot when you eat it. It’s room temperature.”
Soldiers have reportedly been requesting a pizza version of the “meals ready to eat”, or MREs, ever since the products replaced canned food over three decades ago for soldiers in combat zones.
David Accetta, a former Army lieutenant colonel and the lab’s spokesperson, argues that the pizza will also help lift soldiers’ spirits in the field. As he explained to the AP, “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.”