There are many things in the world that someone could be allergic to, and some allergies are more serious than others. While a pollen allergy or a cat allergy may cause cold-like symptoms, being allergic to something like peanuts can be a lot more dangerous.

People who have a peanut allergy are usually very cautious about staying away from peanuts, and many businesses try to make it easy for people with peanut allergies to know whether or not they should be concerned about the presence of peanuts.

Remember when airplanes used to hand out peanuts? That’s not so common anymore. You’re probably more likely to get a different kind of snack like pretzels, cookies or crackers.

Some schools are nut free meaning that children who bring their own lunches to school aren’t allowed to bring nuts or anything containing nuts. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are strictly off limits.

Many restaurants don’t cook with peanut oil and don’t have products containing peanuts inside. Then there’s Five Guys. They are taking a completely different approach to the whole peanut situation.

Five Guys does the exact opposite of steer clear of nuts. In fact, if you walk inside a Five Guys right now, you’ll see free peanuts. There are several reasons for this.

First, according to a Reddit user who used to work at Five Guys, the peanuts are a way of distracting the customers so they’re not just staring at the employees while they wait for their order. Sounds reasonable enough except for one thing – why does it have to be peanuts? Why not a different free snack as a distraction?

The answer is that the peanuts actually act as a visual reminder that Five Guys cooks with peanut oil. In fact, their fries are fried in peanut oil. If someone with a peanut allergy walks inside Five Guys, they might miss the fine print that the fries are cooked in peanut oil, but they are definitely not going to miss seeing the free peanuts.

Most likely anyone with a peanut allergy would be on high alert seeing free peanuts and would decide not to place an order. Smart decision.

While it might seem odd that a fast food restaurant like Five Guys would continue to cook with peanut oil and give free peanuts to customers, they seem to be doing just fine even though it’s definitely not safe for people with a peanut allergy to eat their food.

Do you know anyone with a peanut allergy? Do you think it’s strange that Five Guys makes food that isn’t safe for people who have a peanut allergy?