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Another new item I'm fond of is also a compromise: the chicken pecan salad sandwich ($5.50). I know, I know, nuts are a diet no-no, and this jawbreaker-thick sandwich is chock full of them. "We make up for that by using only white chicken breast meat," Croft says persuasively, "and we trim off all the fat we can before we cook it." The chicken is marinated in a rosemary-spiked herb blend, and the pecans are roasted and garlicky, so the salad has a deep, resonant flavor that more than makes up for the fat shortfall in the lightly toasted five-grain bread. Croft and I disagree on the amount of fat-free mayonnaise appropriate to such a salad, though. "I'm not a big fan of mayonnaise, so I don't like a lot of mayo in my salads," he says. "It makes them gooey." I think he should use more to bind the ingredients; chunks of the loosely packed salad frequently fall out from between the bread slabs to decorate the plate, the table and, most often, my lap. The sandwich is finished with shredded lettuce, tomato slices and a haystack of plain, grated carrots that I believe would benefit from a splash of one of those house dressings.

We also experimented with two of the focaccia bread creations, a grilled portobello sandwich ($6.50) from the blackboard list of specials and a fresh spinach pizza ($6.50) from the regular menu. Both turned out to be object lessons on the importance of olive oil: Without it, the focaccia bread was fly-away light and crumbly, and the thick slivers of mushroom painfully plain; I guess the real selling point is that you can eat either item guilt-free. The single-serving pizza is made with skim-milk mozzarella, thick and surprisingly elastic and almost as good as the real thing, adorned with plenty of mushrooms and spinach. The portobello sandwich sports a light, garlicky pesto sauce, a pretty shade of green but applied too meagerly to moisten the bread. I guess I just prefer my sandwiches gooey.

What is it that personal trainers exhort -- no pain, no gain? That might be Ziggy's anthem: You've got to give up the goo. "People who care about what they eat know they can't get a burger at a fast-food joint," says Croft. "There's just too much fat. Our job at Ziggy's is to give people a reasonable, healthy alternative for the foods they can't have."

Ziggy's Healthy Grill, 2320 West Alabama, (713)527-8588.

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