Thirty-nine cancer patients (Ca) and 37 age-and sex-matched healthy controls (Co) evaluated 11 commercially available enteral supplements using a modified wine-tasting scale. The cancer patients were 19 males with lung cancer and 20 females with breast cancer, and their controls consisted of 17 males and 20 females, respectively. Mean evaluation scores for the individual supplements revealed no significant differences (NS) between lung cancer patients and controls. Ensure Plus (strawberry) received the highest score from both groups (Ca 16.0 +/- 3.0 vs Co 17.1 +/- 2.6, N.S.) while Vital received the lowest (Ca 6.3 +/- 4.8 vs Co 4.9 +/- 4.2, NS). Similar results were obtained for breast cancer patients and their controls except that chocolate Sustacal was rated significantly higher by breast cancer patients than by controls (16.6 +/- 2.6 vs 13.3 +/- 4.3, p less than 0.01). Again, Ensure Plus (strawberry) received the highest score from both groups (Ca 17.0 +/- 3.5 vs Co 17.8 +/- 2.3, NS), while Vital was rated lowest by both groups (Ca 5.6 +/- 4.7 vs Co 4.3 +/- 5.0, NS). The modified wine-tasting scale provides a method for quantitating taste preference for various dietary supplements. We report here the numerical rating of 11 supplements by patients with lung cancer and patients with breast cancer as well as their age- and sex-matched controls.