About 200 soldiers at Fort Carson, Colorado, chowed down for science in September, participating in Army testing that could yield future Meal, Ready to Eat components like a burrito bowl, a chicken sandwich and what some might consider the Holy Grail of combat-ration cuisine — a slice of pepperoni pizza.

The food delivered to the members of two engineering battalions at Fort Carson — and later to reservists at Fort Devens, Massachusetts — still has testing to undergo and won't reach troops until 2017 at the earliest. But new items for the 2015 and 2016 MREs have cleared those hurdles and are set for production, bringing good news for vegetarians, hot-sauce junkies ... and fans of applesauce pound cake that can be stored for three years at 80 degrees Fahrenheit before being served.

It's part of a delicate balance sought by researchers at the Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center in Massachusetts: food that can be stored for years, can fuel soldiers who need energy and nutrients in austere environments, and can include multiple options for diverse palates.

"And, can it taste good?" said Michelle Richardson, a senior food technologist with NSRDEC's Combat Feeding Directorate, whose work includes the shelf-stable pizza.

Researchers wouldn't divulge full results of the soldier surveys regarding the pizza, but "the predominant response was very positive" from all testers, including VIPs and civilians, NSRDEC's Jeremy Whitsitt said.

Most service members won't have the chance to taste-test the pie, but they'll get their hands on other new MRE items as early as next year.

Cuisine coming soon

While the Army handles the research, Defense Department officials annually update the militarywide MRE menu through the Joint Services Operational Rations Forum, which decides the new items that will go into production and those that will exist only in service members' memories, or on storage shelves.

White-meat chicken chunks, a new entree set for production in 2015, might sound dry, but new sauces — buffalo and hot chili lime — are on the way to assist. Troops also will see a new cranberry-grape drink powder, the aforementioned applesauce pound cake, and hash brown potatoes with bacon.

Other new 2015 items might look familiar: peppermint mints, which may replace some other candy items on the way off the menu, and spray-dried coffee — a different preparation method than the freeze-dried packet already included in MREs.

Some new-for-2016 items were part of a push to expand vegetarian offerings — macaroni in tomato sauce and spinach fettuccine, for instance. A chocolate protein drink powder also will be introduced, and crushed red pepper will enter production — ground red pepper has been singled out for removal.

Troop feedback on taste helps shape these decisions, officials said, as does the desire to get the right nutrient mix.

"What we're doing here is not as simple as replacing a beef with a chicken [dish] or replacing a pasta with a pork entree," Whitsitt said. "There's real science behind it."

That science includes the annual field tests like those at Fort Carson, which this year offered a chicken burrito bowl with rice, pinto beans, corn, green chilies and green bell peppers; a turkey garlic Italian patty; a honey barbecue chicken sandwich; a honey-wheat bagel thin; meat sticks and a lemon poppy seed cake, both fortified with Omega-3s; a nutrient-rich trail mix; and the main attraction.

Prepare. Wait 3 years. Serve.

A long-requested MRE item, pizza that is suitable to eat has required solving several problems, Richardson and other researchers said in an Oct. 24 interview. Chief among them: The crust, sauce, cheese and toppings must maintain proper moisture and acidity levels for years while in storage.

"The sauce has a significant amount of moisture," Richardson said. "When you put that on the dough, there's going to be some migration back and forth. The dough is going to get soggy."

Adding salt or sugar can help sop up the moisture, she said, but that could ruin the taste and skew the nutrition content. Researchers used glycerol, a sugar substitute, to keep the sauce from drying out, and made the dough more acidic so its pH level would better match that of the sauce.

Special packaging helps soak up oxygen to preserve the pizza, and researchers use "accelerated storage" to see how their efforts hold up.

"We store it six months at 100 degrees," said Jeannette Kennedy, project lead for the directorate's Fielded Individual Ration Improvement Program. "That will give us a good sense of how the product will perform at three years at 80 degrees" — the requirement for stored MREs.

Once researchers determine they can meet that standard and others, and do so on a large enough scale to produce tens of thousands of meals, the food can take its place on the menu — providing troops will eat it.

That's where tests like those at Fort Carson come in; researchers give soldiers the grub before a training exercise and then step back.

"We get the best consumer data when they are using this ration, consuming this ration, in a field environment," said Sam Newland, consumer research team leader at NSRDEC's Warfighter Directorate. "It's semi-noninterference. All we're doing is issuing them the ration."

Food in the Fort Carson test that passes muster could be part of MRE issue 37, set for production in 2017, Kennedy said.

"But that's a general scenario — I can't speak specifically to pizza."

About Kevin Lilley

Kevin Lilley is the features editor of Military Times.

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