The lunchtime crowd is determined to get its money's worth, hardly leaving a scrap untouched on dishes, a survey shows.

Armed with scales and a sharp eye for detail, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries staff visited 100 restaurants nationwide-not to sample cuisine, but to glean valuable data.

Their conclusion: The amount of uneaten food tucked under lettuce, hidden behind parsley or otherwise wasted after meals was 0.3 percent less than the year before.

According to a Jan. 26 report, an average 19.4 grams of food per serving were cleared from tables and thrown out in 2004. That's 3.3 percent of the average-sized restaurant lunch-581.7 grams.

The ministry's findings are part of a research program to develop less wasteful meals.

The first such survey was in 2000, followed by another in 2003. This time, it focused on eateries in 11 large cities, including, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka, during September and October 2004.

Staff from local statistics and information centers were sent, with scales in hand, to mid-range restaurants frequented by company workers, according to a ministry official.

They shut themselves behind kitchen doors and meticulously weighed leftovers for 5,193 meals, the official explained.

The research showed the highest rate of leftovers-4.6 percent-was in Japanese-style restaurants.

A breakdown of those menus revealed that pickled vegetables were markedly unpopular, with 13.8 percent being left untouched on the plate. This was followed by vegetables in sauce at 13 percent.

Western-style restaurants ranked second in terms of food waste at 3.3 percent. Chinese restaurants came in third at 3.2 percent.

At specialized ``Asian cuisine restaurants'' such as barbecue and curry houses, customers only left 2.5 percent of food uneaten.

``It is possible that this is an effect of the lingering recession,'' said one ministry official. ``More and more people are becoming conscious of not wasting their food.''(IHT/Asahi: February 8,2005)