Love SD!
In general, I find food in the grocery store here (even in the larger cities) is less expensive than grocery stores in the US, especially a city like San Diego. The one thing I find to be much more expensive, and which you wont have any issue with, is meat. Fruit and veg are less expensive as most of it's produced locally and seasonally stocked. Dry goods like flour/sugar/pasta/cereal and canned goods are equal to or less than you'd pay in the US. I don't eat it often enough to take notice, but something to keep in mind is that vegetarinaism and especially veganism aren't very common here, and tofu and things like veggie burgers may be a bit more expensive. Products like soy and almond milk are abundantly available, and comperable or less in price.
Of course I'm using a €1 = $1 ratio as opposed to the exchange rate, since if you're earning in euro then that's how you'd compare prices. If you're converting from $'s you'll be spending more because of the exchange rate, but this will be evened out a bit with the lower food costs.
I'm happy to check out the prices of a few things you'd consider "staples" as well as give you the price of whatever fruit/veg we buy next time I'm at the store. We're not in Rome, so I'm guessing things are possibly 5-10% more (at most) there, but I'm in central Italy, so tI'd say things are more or less comperable.
A couple more things:
- Fruit and veg are almost always less expensive (and fresher) at an "ortofruta", a shop sells only produce.
- If you supplement your diet with vitamins etc. BRING THEM FROM THE US! Vitamins and supplements are EXORBITANTLY expensive here.
Let me know if you'd like me to check out the prices of anything specific!
, and we do not eat soy in general, so no tofu to worry about, but I know there are ways to get those things online so no worries. And, we hope to explore the local ingredients anyway and will not worry about the things we had at home.