1) why do you take as implied thaat Jesus is "just" speaking spiritually when he is adamant and emphatic that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood.
2) The bread of the feeding of the multiude is not the same as the institution of the eucharist, where Jesus says emphatically that the bread is his body. The two feedings are different to make the point that we should not feed on bread alone but on every Word sent by God; and John says Jesus himself is the Word. Which gets back to eating him and his literal flesh not just his words.
3) Jesus in instituting the eucharist makes provision for us to eat his real flesh, the Word, when he says take eat this is my body. Then when we do it in memorial of him we are eating his true flesh, the Word.
Otherwise how is it possble to eat Jesus and the Word? Especially because he is not edible just in his words but he is the Word itself and we need somehow to eat him.
Jesus himself is the eternal word. It is him we must eat. Jesus through his spirit makes this possible by being emphatic in his teaching that the bread of the supper is his body which the Spirit makes different to mundane bread.
Because in a sense oyu are right, to eat the ordinary bread would be going after the world. But eating the real presence of Jesus in the eucharist is eating the Word, as John said:
1IN THE beginning [before all time] was the Word (
[a]Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God
[b]Himself.
(A) because Jesus said:
Matthew 4:4
But He replied, It has been written, Man shall not live and be upheld and sustained by
bread alone, but by every
word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
Jesus himself being the Word of God sent by God. It is by him that we shall live by eating him (not his words)
To believe otherwise is to minimize the significance of the gospel and the power of the words of Jesus which you obviously value.