Hey, I made a preserved lemon and chicken risotto this past weekend! It was very, very good. And now I’m going to fat hell for it, because it was pretty much the uncut heroin of carbohydrate.

I thought about this yesterday when reading Gary Taubes’s latest reporting from the dietary front, in which he cites scientific research demonstrating that — warning, Sam MacDonald! — a calorie is not just a calorie. Calories from carbs are much worse for promoting weight gain than calories from fat or protein, because they affect the body’s metabolism adversely. Taubes:

If we think of Dr. Ludwig’s subjects as pre-obese, then the study tells us that the nutrient composition of the diet can trigger the predisposition to get fat, independent of the calories consumed. The fewer carbohydrates we eat, the more easily we remain lean. The more carbohydrates, the more difficult. In other words, carbohydrates are fattening, and obesity is a fat-storage defect. What matters, then, is the quantity and quality of carbohydrates we consume and their effect on insulin.

From this perspective, the trial suggests that among the bad decisions we can make to maintain our weight is exactly what the government and medical organizations like the American Heart Association have been telling us to do: eat low-fat, carbohydrate-rich diets, even if those diets include whole grains and fruits and vegetables.

A controversial conclusion? Absolutely, and Dr. Ludwig’s results are by no means ironclad. The diets should be fed for far longer than one month, something he hopes to do in a follow-up study. As in any science, these experiments should be replicated by independent investigators. We’ve been arguing about this for over a century. Let’s put it to rest with more good science. The public health implications are enormous.

Personally, I have never felt better, nor found it easier to stay trim, than when I ate a diet low in carbs and sugar, and high in fresh, non-starchy vegetables and lean protein.