Studies of motivated behaviour usually involve rewarding specific actions with edible rewards. I am a PhD candidate interested in how the nutritional properties of incentives make a difference to behaviour. For instance,  whether decisions among options that lead to foods varying in protein, carbohydrate, or fat content are influenced by specific nutritional components through a history of learning to associate the metabolic consequences with their sensory characteristics (e.g., with flavours, smells, and so on) and contexts where those outcomes are particularly useful. Exploring the nature of psychological mechanisms involved in these decisions, and what factors can facilitate or hinder their accurate operation in the lab rat, might have implications for foraging behaviour in other species motivated to maintain a balanced appetite in response to environmental challenges. Lessons learned may also help understand decision making more generally where trade-offs must be made among incentives that differ along multiple dimensions.