Ain't Nothin' Wrong With a Slim Jim

"DoD developing a better dehydrated meat."

The Defense Department is developing a shelf-stable meat that tastes less like a Slim Jim and more like chicken, beef or pork.

DoD’s Combat Feeding Directorate and the Army’s Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center have teamed with an Augusta, Ga.,-based company to produce meat that can sit on a shelf for two or three years and still remain soft and juicy, with a consistency similar to deli cold cuts.

The process involves grinding up a base meat such as chicken, pork or beef (vegetables are being tested as well) and passing it slowly through a continuous osmotic dehydration processor, removing water from the meat by osmosis, drawing it out with a solution of sugar and salt.

The result is a product that presses out of the dehydration machine looking like a giant Fruit Roll Up.

There! You see? Which would you rather have, a Slim Jim or a Fruit Roll-Up? I know what I prefer.