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Unicode Consortium Looks At Symbols For Allergies

Posted by samzenpus on from the do-you-know-what-this-means? dept.

AmiMoJo writes: A proposal (PDF) submitted by a Google engineer to the Unicode Consortium asks that food allergies get their own emojis and be added to the standard. The proposal suggests the addition of peanuts, soybeans, buckwheat, sesame seeds, kiwi fruit, celery, lupin beans, mustard, tree nuts, eggs, milk products and gluten. According to TNW: "This proposal will take a little longer to become reality — it's still in very early stages and needs to be reviewed by the Unicode Consortium before it can move forward, but it'll be a great way for those with allergies to quickly express them."

2 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. some, at least, are already in widespread use by raymorris · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At least some of these symbols ARE in common use already, often printed so small that you don't notice them if you're not looking for them. For example, I never knew that the gluten-free symbol existed until my wife was diagnosed with celiac disease (gluten intolerance) . Now that I know what to look for, I see the symbol quite often; sometimes on packaged foods and sometimes on menus.

    Checking a few of the products in my pantry right now, I see that it's about evenly split between the symbol and the words "gluten free". Fritos for example, use the words. Chex cereal has the words and a _different_ symbol. Standardization would make shopping easier, faster and safer.

    That said, standardizing WHERE on the package this information is found would be the most useful. It's most often listed immediately after the standard ingredient listing, but there is a lot of variation so we have to carefully examine all around the whole package looking for one of the two pictorial symbols, or the words "gluten free", or the circled GF symbol, or the words "gluten free". The most common is the most useful - an icon of a wheat stalk with the crossed out circle (similar to the "no smoking" symbol).

  2. Obligatory post for all Unicode articles by Bringer128 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    https://modelviewculture.com/p...

    The above article shows how ridiculous it is to have these emojis in the Unicode standard when they are missing letters in multiple eastern alphabets.