The acceptability of sweet and savoury sip feeds

Successful dietary supplementation by sip feeding can be difficult to achieve when the flavour is unpleasant to the patient. The palatability of nine varieties of sip feed were assessed by 20 hospital patients with non-malignant conditions and by 16 control subjects, using a single-blind randomised technique. Sweet flavours were preferred to savoury flavours; chocolate, strawberry and banana were the favourites, chosen in similar numbers by both patients and controls. Sweet flavours were often correctly identified, with the exception of egg nog, but savoury flavours were recognised less frequently. The results have implications for the success of supplementation.