Melissa Horen doesn’t eat cheeseburgers. It’s not that the Overland Park sophomore doesn’t like them; she’s not allowed to eat them. Horen is Jewish, and according to kashrut, or kosher dietary law, mixing milk and meat is a no-no.

The word kosher comes from a Hebrew word meaning “fit” or “proper,” and it encompasses all food that follows the dietary requirements of Jewish people. Typically, a lot of people misunderstand the word and think it implies that food can only be eaten if blessed by a rabbi. But that’s not what certifies a product as kosher. Depending on the food you eat, there are different requirements that must be followed.

According to Jewish dietary law, milk and meat must be eaten separately. The core idea behind the no mixing rule is that a source of life cannot be used as an agent of death, says Rabbi Scott White, a spiritual leader at the Lawrence Jewish Community Center, 917 Highland Drive. He explains that in the third book of the Torah, the Jewish holy book, there is a verse that basically states that you cannot boil the kid, meaning a baby goat or lamb, in the mother’s milk. It goes against the natural order to use the commodity of youth as an agent of death, says White, and he says that the kosher diet stems from this belief.

For a food product to be considered kosher, a rabbi needs to see the setup where the food will be made and supervise the production to ensure the machines aren’t also used for non-kosher foods. The rabbi also must be allowed to come in whenever he wants, says White. Once this has taken place, the food gets the rabbi’s stamp of certification, with symbols varying from company to company. One of the most well-known kosher symbols is OU. Most regular grocery stores carry kosher-certified foods, especially pareve items, or food that is not milk or meat, such as juice and pasta.

Buying meat is a different story. White says that regular grocery stores don’t carry kosher meats because they aren’t slaughtered according to kosher law. There are no kosher markets in Lawrence, so a 45-minute drive to Irv’s Market in Overland Park is necessary to put kosher meat on the menu. At the store, kosher meats and a variety of kosher foods are available, as well as frozen foods.

Chaim Bernstein is a kosher supervisor at Irv’s Market, and his job is to make sure every product that arrives at the store is kosher. What is the main thing he checks for? Insects.

“Those bags of lettuce that you get? Full of bugs,” Bernstein says, referring to the bagged salads available at regular grocery stores. He makes sure the lettuce in Irv’s Market is bug-free because eating insects is forbidden, or traif, along with pork and shellfish.

A kosher diet is not only for Jewish people. Muslims have similar dietary restrictions and look for kosher-certified foods. Eating in restaurants is somewhat of a challenge for people who strictly follow a kosher diet in Lawrence. As far as White knows, there are no kosher-certified restaurants around town, but he says a few restaurants in the Kansas City area offer kosher dining. If you are looking to keep kosher but enjoy dining out, these are some restaurants to check out. In addition to being a grocery store, Irv’s Market serves kosher dishes and has a small area for dining. Princess Garden, a Chinese restaurant in Kansas City, Mo., uses separate cooking equipment and utensils for kosher customers to serve food two Sunday nights a month. The Hereford House in Leawood has a separate kosher kitchen upstairs that it uses to serve kosher meals once a month.

Horen views eating kosher as a daily reminder of her religion and moral values. Though she doesn’t strictly follow every kosher dietary law, she says she follows the rules as much as she can. For instance, the kitchen in her sorority house isn’t a kosher kitchen, which means that there hasn’t been any supervision by a rabbi, and the utensils may have been used to prepare non-kosher food as well. Horen tries to make sure to ask for alternative dishes if the main course includes something that is not kosher. Keeping kosher isn’t difficult if you are committed, says White, and it’s a diet that anyone, not just Jewish people, can maintain.