Scenario: One of the city's most famous chefs, known for his love of meat and who built his restaurant on the whole animal concept, suddenly embraces a meatless burger.

Impossible, you say?

Think again.

Chris Shepherd, the James Beard Award-winning chef of Underbelly and its sister the Hay Merchant, is now the proud server of the Impossible Burger, a plant-based meat brand that its creators say looks, handles, smell, cooks and tastes like ground beef from cows. Made entirely from plants, the Impossible Burger is now making its debut at both Underbelly and the Hay Merchant, 1100 Westheimer; they are the first restaurants in Texas serving the burger.

So why is a chef so known for his meat-loving ways and menus stuffed with animal protein taking a shine to a meat-free burger? Shepherd said, quite emphatically, because he likes it: "It looks and tastes like a (expletive) burger."

But there are other reasons Shepherd said he decided to put the Impossible Burger on his menus. "It's super interesting to me. There has to be an answer for the future."

And by that he means the reasons that it was created in the first place: to reduce the environmental effects that animal agriculture – which requires tremendous land, water, and energy resources – has on the planet. The Impossible Burger was created by Impossible Foods, a company dedicated to making the global food system more sustainable by producing meat and dairy products from plants that have a lower environmental footprint. The Impossible Burger (currently served by only a handful of restaurants such as Umami Burger restaurants in California, Jardinere and Public House in San Francisco, and Momofuku Nishi and Momofuku Ssam Bar in New York) is the company's first product; it also currently is working on plant-based fish and dairy foods.

During a media presentation of the burger at Underbelly on Friday, Impossible Foods CEO Patrick O. Brown, spoke about what goes into making meatless meat. Made from wheat, coconut oil and potatoes, the burger gets its meaty properties from heme, an iron-containing molecule, that is naturally abundant in red meat. But heme is also found in plants and Brown and his scientist partners found a way to amp it up its production using yeast.

Interestingly, the company is not targeting vegetarians in marketing the Impossible Burger. So sure of Impossible Burger's meat-like experience, Impossible Foods is going after meat eaters and purposely partnering with meat-loving chefs who can appreciate the sensory, meaty aspects of this meatless product.

"There are billions of people who love meat and are never going to stop loving meat," said Brown, a doctor and PhD (University of Chicago) who is a professor emeritus from Stanford University's biochemistry department. But, he asked, "Is there some way we can satisfy that hunger without compromising and without he environmental impacts to the system?"

Brown laid out the facts: growing plants for livestock production consumes 25 percent of the world's fresh water; animal agriculture occupies nearly half the world's land and is responsible for 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

"No other industry has a great impact on the environment," he said of the food production system as a whole.

Enter the Impossible Burger which, Brown says, uses a fraction of the Earth's natural resources. It feels and looks like ground beef, sears like a meat patty, and even oozes juice.

And the taste? Like the real deal, Shepherd said. "One taste, and I knew I wanted it on my menus."

Impossible Foods knew if Shepherd liked it, other meat eaters would too. Debuting the burger in beef-loving Texas is something Impossible Foods wanted to do. It is that sure of its product. "If we can't produce something that satisfies Texans who love meat, we have to go back to the drawing board," Brown said.

Many of those who tasted the burger at the media event were pleasantly surprised.

Underbelly is serving the Impossible Burger at lunch only; it is available daily at the Hay Merchant.