In the Philippines, Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) and micronutrient deficiencies remain the leading nutritional problems within the country. The Municipality of Sergio Osmeña ranked 1st in the incidence of malnutrition among municipalities in Zamboanga del Norte last 2016. In Barangay Biayon, Municipality of Sergio Osmeña, malnutrition is a persistent problem. This problem has been ongoing despite several interventions being implemented by the government. The main objective of this study is to determine the effects of lecture with cooking demonstration on the knowledge, practices and skills of primary caretakers on meal preparation and the nutritional status of daycare children of Barangay Biayon, Sergio Osmeña, Zamboanga del Norte. This is a pre-post interventional research design and total count was used. The intervention made use of lecture with cooking demonstration regarding nutrition, RENI computation, safe and hygienic meal preparation and basic cooking skills for the primary caretakers which was given by a Nutritionist Dietician. Alongside, nutritious recipes with calculated RENI for daycare children were made used during feeding program. There were a total of 32 primary caretakers that were included in this study. Results revealed an increasing trend in the mean scores from pre-test of 14.53 to 16.06 on post-test 1 and increased to 16.65 for post-test 2. However; it was not considered significant from pre-test to post-test 1. On the other hand, the increase from pre-test vs post-test 2 was statistically significant with a p-value of .028 was maybe be due to repeated exposure to questionnaire. For the RENI computation, there was a significant increase among respondents who knows basic RENI computation from 0 pre-intervention to 8 (25%) post-intervention 2, with p-value of .016. However, it was noted to have a decrease between post-intervention 1 vs post-intervention 2. For the practices, data confirms that majority of respondents already performed good practices before the intervention; it can be assumed that they already know what safe and hygienic practices are. And most of the items in the checklists had been noted to have an increase from pre-intervention to post-intervention 2 however, the increase was not significant but, it is still of note that there were improvements seen at the end of the study. For the skills assessment, data showed that majority of the respondents already performed good skills before the intervention; it can be assumed that they already know what basic cooking skills. And a number of the items in the checklist had been noted to have an increase from pre-intervention to post-intervention 2 however, the increase was not significant but, it is still of note that there were improvements seen among the respondents at the end of the study. And for the nutritional status of the children, the differences in weight 3 months after the intervention showed a succeeding increase in the mean weight and the difference was highly significant with a p – value of .000. The results of this study concludes that the intervention was effective in terms of basic RENI computation due to the significant increase at the end of the study and also it can be concluded that the nutritious recipes for the daily supplementary feeding program in the day care centers significantly improved the status of the children as evidence by the increased in their weight after 3 months of intervention. However, the study was not at all enough to have a positive outcome in all of the items for practices and skills on meal preparation. But it is noteworthy that the respondents have some areas of improvement in certain items regarding meal preparation at the end of the study.

Keyword: Cooking Demonstration Practices and skills Meal Preparation