Can anyone find or locate a reference or copy to the famous, or infamous, white paper (official medical/government published) on "Three White Poisons" circa 1947-1949. Food falling on the floor and being dished out to diners even at (or more often at) expensive restaurants is nothing new - a few decades ago a small paperback about 150 pages , easy 'light' reading, about how in the most respected restaurants in France, Paris, with the best reviews and rich clientele, were not particularly careful , except to get "good looking" plates of food out in a short time, no concern if it happened to have spilled on the floor in the kitchen. Problem? No, not really, consider that most of the world's people cannot afford the lest expensive restaurant anyway, and what they eat has been noted to be as poor as literal mud pies. (Haiti, after the devastation there, reported the pregnant women (and the children (and men?) ) often had only dirt mixed with water - 'mud pies' - to eat to attempt to take in the minerals they knew they needed. Meanwhile, back in the luxurious untied states, food being recommended and given daily to babies , officially (by doctors and government agencies), continued to increase illnesses many thousands of percent since between wwI and wwII. (thru today without interruption).
Food dropping on the floor in commercial kitchens shouldn’t be of any major concern since people at home do it all the time. It is what happens AFTER the food is dropped on the floor that counts. If the proper measures to insure food quality have been taken then I have no problem with it. If it needs to be tossed, toss it and if it can be cleaned and heated or cooled back to serve-safe conditions then it is what it is. In the U.S., any time you walk into a restaurant there is a health certificate readily visible for anyone to look at. If you have concerns then read it, find out what the health department has found and then decide if you want to eat there. Health inspections are not announced prior to an inspection and whatever condition the kitchen is in, whatever condition the employees are found in and whatever condition the food is in will be on that report.
What is the subject matter? Is it the evils of sugar/flour/milk, or is it an analysis of restaurant sanitary conditions?
You can go online and read the reports from the comfort of your couch before you decide where to eat. Most jurisdictions (counties?) post them...they are searchable and you can see the sequence of reports for a given establishment so as to identify repeat offenses and trends at any given restaurant. As I said before, if you want consistent cleanliness, then you're eating where your meal is pre-made and waiting for you to come get it...just follow the grease trail. I'm sure we all got stories. My last employer rented out space to a small cafe that would push back if you showed them the outdated foods they were selling (including dairy products.) I once ordered a roast beef sandwich and could see the shiny pink slime on it from 15 feet away...I walked out without my meal. (And how did the health inspector not see the toothbrush and toothpaste at the back of the prep sink???) They finally got shut down when the admin of a high-ranking VP ended up in the hospital for a week.
First, nothing to do with sanitary conditions. Doctors noted a tremendous increase in disease between wwI and wwII, so much so it was that the medical requirements for allowing admission to the military had to be changed substantially in order to fill quota's aimed for. What had caused the health problems in the short time between wwI and wwII ? That was the question spurring the doctor's /government's reviewing / study/ investigation officially. They found officially, medically, that sugar, flour, milk did not cause significant health problems unless it was processed, refined, adulterated the way all 3 were by production corporations, methods and procedures after the start of wwI. The changes in part and in toto resulted in multiple varied and extensive health problems in all age groups, specifically for the doctors interest in military age recruits (which was significant enough and important enough to notice and to look into).