Can’t help with protecting wood floor, but we considered adding a wood floor when redoing our kitchen. However, our issue was wear. Everybody uses our back/side door, and in our layout you have to go on a path through the kitchen to get into the rest of the house. We already had wood floors everywhere else, and were noticing a little wear on our wood floor right after the entrance from the kitchen to the living area. We figured a wood floor wouldn’t work because there would likely be a “wear path” too quickly if we put wood in the kitchen. I have noticed in our son’s kitchen that the only wear in the entire house of wood floors, was a spot under the stool seating at the kitchen counter from the previous owner. So wear is worth considering when putting a wood floor in a kitchen.

I love hardwood in a kitchen. It's easy to stand on, and softer if you drop something. Engineered hardwood or prefinished hardwood comes with such good finishes now that as long as you're not pouring water on the floor and letting it sit for days, it shouldn't be an issue at all. Put a long runner in front of the sink area where you could get some splashing, and choose the floors you like. You won't have any kind of "wear path" either on prefinished floors. On wood floors with onsite finishes, it's important to add new protective coatings every few years or you can have issues with both those things.