No floor is clean enough to do this.

I used to, and then I realized that "germs" exist and they're called bacteria and viruses, so I stopped doing it. I only trust tables and surfaces because they're (at least supposed to be) cleaned with sanitizer.... Even then, it's iffy.

Eating anything from the floor, regardless of how much or how little time it's been there, is not something I ever want to risk. Regardless of how clean a place appears to be.

I have enough GI issues without getting some mystery stomach bug because the wing that fell on the floor for 2 seconds was really good and I didn't want to lose it. I'd rather go hungry.

Yeah, it will. It may be worse for "wet" food, but it's still true nonetheless for "dry" food.

I will say that most people's experience with this is fairly positive, in that, those that eat off the floor, especially those that obey the "5 second rule" don't usually get sick from the activity. The fact remains, 5 seconds or less (or not) carries much of the same risks of getting some kind of stomach bug. They may be mitigated by contact duration, and the gut is incredibly good at eliminating bacterial and viral infiltration into the body, but it's still very much luck.

Luck that it didn't make contact with a bacteria or virus that will have a negative effect. Those bugs are everywhere, even on "clean" surfaces (whether visibly clean or otherwise). Unless you actively sterilize your floors continually, the microscopic organisms are there. Whether tracked in on your shoe or foot, or they're transferred to the area by contact with something unclean or bacteria ridden....

An extreme and obvious example of this is someone dropping raw chicken on the kitchen floor and not sanitizing the area where it landed. That bacteria from the uncooked chicken is on the floor. Since it was not properly cleaned and sanitized, it's very very likely still there. Walking through the kitchen to a living space will contact transfer the bacteria to every location where you step; and imagine you walk around the couch. Later, enjoying some chips on the couch, you drop a chip right were a foot with the bacteria landed, and that bacteria is transferred to your chip.

No 5 second rule will save you from the Salmonella poisoning from the chip on the floor.

Salmonella is not the only risk either, the chaos of tracking in bacteria from outdoors and public spaces is very very real. Going to the shop and walking through a space where someone had previously walked, who works in a place with some other nasty bug that induces GI suffering... It's all over their shoes and now all over the floor, and now that you've been there, it's all over your shoes too. You go home and like a sensible person, take your shoes off at the door, but in doing so, you walk over where you've stood in your shoes, so now you've transferred that bug from your shoes to your socks/feet, and now you're tracking it all over the house. Same deal, now that it's on the floor, you drop something and then within 5 seconds, pick it up to eat it and bam, vomiting, diarrhea, the works. You miss work but the boss is tired of your shit, so he fires you and now you can't pay rent. Next thing you know you're homeless, turning tricks under the king st bridge to pay for your heroin addiction.

They're worse than rabbits.