Allergies in Italy
 

Hello,

I am travelling with my daughter who is allergic to dairy, eggs, nuts and fish.
Do you know if you can get soy based milk and soy cheese easily in Rome ?
Thanks

You can get a lot of information using online searches (Google). For instance, this site mentions gelato with rice or soy milk, among other useful information:

http://www.italylogue.com/food-drink...ly-travel.html

And another forum answer about soy milk here:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...e_Tuscany.html

You should easily be able to find soy milk in most supermarkets. You might need to go to a health food store to get soy cheeses. You can do a google search for "negozi produtti biologici roma" and google will give you a map showing where some are. A hotel concierge or rental apt landlord should also be able to help.

If your daughter is severely allergic to the items you mention, you should carry with you a card to show waiters in restaurants, or delis where you shop. Cheese, eggs and nuts might be in dishes without their being mentioned on the menu, and likewise anchovies are sometimes used as a flavoring in sauces without it being mentioned.

Some of these links to Italian-language allergy cards might be out of date, but you can probably find others online

http://moving2italy2.blogspot.it/200...d-allergy.html

maybe you can check for health food stores and im sure supermarkets sell them too.

dairy, eggs, nuts and fish

You must take a note in good italian for any waiter, great tool.

The danger, in any restaurant, will be cross contamination, shouldn't happen but.... people make mistakes.

Still your question is about shops, so I'll butt out

Perhaps you could bring some dairy free parmesan with you. This you will never find in Italy.

Following up from my previous posting if your daughter is just lactose intolerant then Parmigiano Reggiano is ok.

I have seen soy milk on Italian grocery stores. Can't say I've seen soy cheese, but I wasn't looking.

My daughter is allergic to all dairy products, as well as to beef. Soy milk, soy yoghurt, soy ice cream, and the like, are all easily found here. I have never seen soy cheese. That is because most dairy substitutes are for people who are lactose intolerant, rather than truly allergic to dairy products. Most cheeses have little or no lactose, so there isn't much market for soy cheese.

I looked in a health food store recently for soy cheese, or something of the sort, as I thought maybe vegans would be looking for such a product. I couldn't find any there, either, but that doesn't mean other health food stores wouldn't have it.

I have looked at vegan blogs in Italian to see what they use as a cheese substitute. Mostly it seems to me homemade tofu-based concoctions.