The South Beach Wine and Food Festival is back in town for the 12th year, complete with the family-friendly Fun and Fit as a Family event, featuring Kellogg’s Kidz Kitchen – sponsored by the experts on fun: Carnival Cruise Line!
The South Beach Wine and Food Festival is a star-studded event with Food Network stars like Bobby Flay, Paula Deen, Giada DeLaurentiis, Guy Fieri, Rocco DiSpirito, Tyler Florence, Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawsen, Curtis Stone, Michael Symon, and Emeril Lagasse and other notable culinary experts join local restaurants to showcase their talents in seminars, parties, tastings with over 250 wineries, spirit producers and non-alcoholic beverage suppliers.
Jungle Island (formerly Parrot Jungle Island) combines the beauty of Miami’s tropical landscape with a jungle full of extraordinary animals from around the world. It’s a great place to visit any day of the week, and as it turns out is an excellent venue for The South Beach Food and Wine Festival’s only kid friendly event.
Florida Blue presented Fun and Fit as a Family sponsored by Carnival was held on both Saturday and Sunday with the goal to encourage parents and kids to eat healthy and stay active, with the key focus that all foods can be enjoyed in moderation.
Throughout the day there are hands on demonstrations in either the Kellog’s Kids Kitchen or the Whole Foods Market Food Labs where kids got to be as messy as they want all while learning some nutritional basics. There was a food garden the kids could explore and get their bodies moving in fun activities like obstacle courses and hula hooping as well as explore the animals of Jungle Island.
Food Network personalities like Giada DeLaurentiis and Rocco DiSpirito held “cooking schools” where they showed that eating healthy can taste good and be fun to prepare. My boys and I had the fun experience of witnessing first hand just how sweet Giada DeLaurentiis really is and how her smile really does light up a room. While we were in line a gentleman with Jungle Island asked the kids who would like to be apart of Giada’s cooking class. My boys were excited to join in and got to don a chef’s hat and Kellog’s apron (which they got to keep) and head off to sit in “class”.
Giada was to share two kid friendly recipes one a cute pizza muffin (can’t find the recipe) and a strawberry pie (made in a muffin tin) but only got to make one. These adorable and delicious sounding Pizza Muffins because parents kept sending their kids down for a photo op. I thought this totally rude and something that could only happen in Miami, but Giada was gracious and welcoming and really made us feel like we were sitting in her living room.
She shared that she teaches her daughter about portion control by making these small kid friendly foods, where she can get a visual on what is a real portion size and learn to not over eat that way.
She took questions from the audience one was how she managed to be a chef and stay so thin. She said, she enjoyed “little bits of everything and not a lot of anything” and that she ate her favorite (dark chocolate) every day; her secret: she puts semi-sweet chocolate chips in the freezer and enjoys a few. Because they’re frozen they take longer to melt and so she get’s to enjoy them longer with out eating too many.
All in all we had a great day, got to sample some yummy and healthy kid friendly foods all while taking in the beautiful ambiance that is Jungle Island.
Jungle Island is located at 1111 Parrot Jungle Trail, Watson Island, FL 33132, and can be reached at (305) 400-7000.
You can find out more about Jungle Island on their website, and while you’re at it, why not explore the new Carnival Breeze cruise ship? Sailing to the Caribbean out of the Port of Miami, the new Carnival Breeze is the ultimate all-inclusive family-friendly vacation choice!
A special thanks to nicóle olea for attending this fantastic event on my behalf!
mom, wife, writer, devourer of books, i crush on vintage because of the stories.
i try to dance gracefully through life-usually i just stumble.
The blog: www.nicoleolea.com Find Nicole on Twitter: @nicky_olea
I received complimentary admission to the Fun and Fit as a Family event, though all opinions expressed in this story are the author’s own.
Oh my gosh, I want to go!
What a great event! Love Kellogs and I absolutely love Giada!
I would have loved to have been there. What an awesome opportunity for your children. Now it’s time to go put some dark chocolate in my freezer so I can be thin like Giada. 😉
My grandkids and I really enjoyed being there on Sunday. We had a great time! They had all kinds of activities and healthy food stations going on the whole time that we were there.
Giada rocks, love her show!