Remember "pink slime?"
It's a meat-based product used as a food additive in ground beef and beef-based processed meats as a filler or to reduce the overall fat content of ground beef.
However, several years ago, some people said it was first used as pet food and cooking oil, then later approved for human consumption.
"Several years ago, some folks thought that type of meat processing was not safe and was not scientifically sound," Shannon Cooper, lobbying for the Missouri Cattlemen's Association, told the state Senate's Rules, Joint Rules, Resolutions and Ethics Committee on Tuesday.
"When everything was over and we had actually proved that the allegations were false, two packing plants had been closed ,and close to 1,000 jobs were lost - and those plants are still closed to this day."
Cooper said that story should show lawmakers why "we find it very important for our industry to make sure that what is promulgated is truthful, based on real science and not on hysteria."
He testified on a resolution offered by Sen. Shalonn "Kiki" Curls, D-Kansas City, that would "encourage" Missouri's 10-member congressional delegation "to support the use of science-based data to assess the impacts of regulations of modern agricultural technologies."
"We know the role that agriculture plays in our state," Curls said. "This resolution is a means of being proactive to protect that role and to avoid unnecessary restrictions on the use of modern technology in agriculture that could pose a serious handicap on the future of our state's agricultural industry."
Sen. Mike Parson, R-Bolivar, also wants lawmakers to endorse his resolution aimed at what he sees is a more specific threat: California's restrictions on raising chickens and selling eggs.
"California, with the help of the Humane Society of the United States, passed an initiative petition in (2008) that basically said how chickens would be housed, how they would be detained and how they would be basically in open areas," Parson reminded the Rules committee members.
"The problem is, they have now reached out to the other states in the United States - basically saying that in order to sell eggs in California, you've got to meet our standards."
Parson's resolution would condemn the California laws relating to shelled eggs and call upon the California Legislature and the state's voters to repeal those laws that, Parson told the committee, "interferes with the trade of other states."
Ashley McDonald, testifying for the Missouri Farm Bureau, told the committee, "We do believe there are very strong commerce clause implications with what California has done."
The U.S. Constitution's "commerce clause gives Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the states. Missouri and five other states challenged the California law in February 2014, California's rules violated the commerce clause giving control of interstate commerce to Congress."
However, U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly J. Mueller ruled in October 2014 the states didn't have the legal standing to sue because they failed to show the California law does genuine harm instead of just possible future damage to some egg producers.
So the states appealed.
Nanci Gonder, a spokeswoman for Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, said Tuesday the briefs in the appeal have been filed, "but we have not received dates for an oral argument" in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Senate Floor Leader Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, handled a similar resolution last year that died in the last week of the session.
The Rules committee took no action on either of the bills Tuesday.