Making the text in an align environment italic

How can I make all the text in an align environment italic? As you can see from the code below I have started by adding \textit to each row but then when I get to making the fraction italic I get an error. Is there a better way?

\begin{align*}
\textit{27 + 183}
& \textit{= 210}\\
\textit{27 + 2}
& \textit{= 29}\\
\frac{1}{2} \times 29
&= 14.5\\
14.5 × 14.5
& = 210.25\\
210.25 - 210
& = 0.25\\
(0.25)
& = 0.5
\end{align*}

• really you want an italic = ? I'd use \mathit{27} + \mathit{2} and \frac{\mathit{1}}{\mathit{2}} – David Carlisle Mar 20 '17 at 15:10

assuming you just want numbers not all symbols in italic I'd just use your editor to replace ([0-9.]+) by \\mathit{\1} resulting in

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}
\begin{align*}
\mathit{27} + \mathit{183}
&= \mathit{210}\\
\mathit{27} + \mathit{2}
& = \mathit{29}\\
\frac{\mathit{1}}{\mathit{2}} \times \mathit{29}
&= \mathit{14.5}\\
\mathit{14.5} × \mathit{14.5}
& = \mathit{210.25}\\
\mathit{210.25} - \mathit{210}
& = \mathit{0.25}\\
(\mathit{0.25})
& = \mathit{0.5}
\end{align*}
\end{document}