Pisa - vegan marg and soya milk in supermarkets?

[jibber]

Hi all

Heading for a week to just outside of Pisa. Can anyone tell me if I can get vegan marg and soya milk in a large supermarket? If so what should I be looking out for instead of spending hours scanning every label with my dictionary?

Also anything I should pick up at the supermarket that is a favorite of any board users? Will get veggies and fruit at a market but was hoping to find the basics at the supermarket.

Thanks!

[Declan]

Hey! Sorry for the delay in replying to this - need to check the forum more often! If you've not been already, things to look out for:

A lot of vegan products say on them "Vegetale" or "100% vegetale" (sometimes the ones without the 100% are vegan, sometimes they're not, so check). Valsoia are a good brand that do vegan ice-cream and a vegan chocolate spread, which is a bit like nutella, and better than the dairy-free chocolate spread in the UK, I think. They also do these little snack things that are pastry tubes filled with either chocolate cream or almond cream (almonds=mandorle). The same brand also make fake chicken cutlets and meatballs and things but as far as I know, these are never vegan.

Watch out for lard ("strutto") in bread and pizza. I don't know how much of a problem that'll be in Pisa, but in Emilia-Romagna they're obsessed with it!

As for soy milk, I find it quite hard to get it in the supermarkets all the time. Rice milk (latte di riso, the biggest brand seems to be Chiccolat) and oat milk (latte di avena) are much easier to get ahold of in Italy, in my experience. The cheapest vegetable margarines are usually vegan, though as always, do check. I shop at coop, and their own-brand marg (yellow wrapping, picture of a one-euro coin with a smiling face on the font, about 57 cents per 250g) is vegan, it's what I use all the time.

Key words to watch out for on labelling: strutto, latte (parzialmente scremato in povere), uovo, miele (=honey). "Puó contenere tracce di..." means "may contain traces of..."

A good tip would be to find a herbalist shop (erboristeria), they're all over the place in Italy and usually sell some health food type stuff.

[jibber]

Hi! Thanks so much for replying. I have found a coop near the airport that I planned using to stock up on basics so will look out for those products.

I am not fussy and will drink rice milk instead of soy milk so good to know I can find it in the supermarket.

Thanks for the handy tip about the lard.

I might even print out your reply as when I am in the supermarket in holiday mode I will probably forget everything!

[jibber]

Well I am back from Italy and had no problems. Found alpro soya milk in the supermarket and also found the sojasun yoghurts in the fridge. They even had soya and rice milk in the tiny village shop! Found alpro alternative to cream in a spar in a beachy place so made some creamy pasta with corgettes - yum!

Found some vegan marg (thanks for the tip - I just looked for the smiley € face!) and of course ate loads of fresh veggies and fruit.

The bread was fine too and the only ingredients on that were flour, water salt, olive oil and yeast so all good for dipping into huge vats of EVOO!

[bryzee86]

Ah, good to know it all went smoothly - I might be visiting Italy in the future so it's good to know what to look out for