Google makes salad emoji vegan to promote ‘inclusion and diversity’

The eggy green salad is no more

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The number of eateries that offer vegan-friendly dishes has been on the rise in recent times, with popular chain restaurants such as Wagamama and Pizza Express updating their menus to be as inclusive to their customers as possible.

However, it’s not just tangible meals that are being updated to meet vegan dietary requirements, but pixelated ones too.

The latest Google emoji update for Android users includes a slight alteration to the salad emoji, which will see the eggs removed so that it’s suitable for vegans.

This change has come about in an effort to promote inclusivity among the plethora of smartphone users.

“There’s big talk about inclusion and diversity at Google,” Jennifer Daniel, a UX manager for Google emoji stated on Twitter.

She went on to explain that the updated emoji actually corresponds more accurately with its original description.

“Hello carnivores, vegans and everyone in between!” she wrote.

“Just want to clarify that the goal of salad emoji redesign was to create an image more faithful to unicode’s description.

“‘A bowl of healthy salad, containing lettuce, tomato, and other salad items such as cucumber.’ Bon appetite! [sic]”

While Google may have taken the step to consider the vegan community when updating its emojis, there are a number of emojis still available for Android and iOS users that haven’t followed suit when perhaps they could have.

The pizza emoji on Android and iOS depicts a slice with a topping of pepperoni, something which would undoubtedly not appeal to vegetarians.

The Google emoji for a “shallow pan of food” contains both prawns and mussels, despite the description mentioning neither, with the iOS version including a meat drumstick.

Furthermore, eggs are clearly visible in the Bento Box featured on the Google emoji list.

The vegan salad isn’t the only recent update Google has made in the name of diversity.

More designs that will become available to use later in 2018 include the options for a gender-inclusive family and a gender-inclusive couple.

After much discussion, redheaded emojis will finally be appearing in the collection. However, Daniel clarified that their inclusion is slightly limited.

“All y’all redheads are losing your redheaded minds over the new redhead emoji but y’all realise this doesn’t mean you get redheaded skateboarders or redheaded vampires right?” she tweeted.

“You get… a redheaded person. That’s it."