Radical,
No Christ never said, “my body will mystically change into bread” But he did
- Call him self the bread of life
- He Paralleled this bread to the manna in the desert, but said you will not die like the Israelites but have everlasting life. The manna in the desert was food for their journey to the promised land, it tasted like wafers made of honey, a foretaste of the “land of milk and honey”. The Eucharist is a wafer that is food for our journey, not a physical journey out of Egypt but a spiritual journey. When Christ stepped into the river it didn’t part like it did for Moses, but the clouds parted because the new exodus is a spiritual heavenly journey and not a physical journey. The eucharist is food for the new exodus
- He tells the people to eat this new bread after calling himself the bread of life, and then he tells them that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink. He says “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” after having already said “ if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever”
Yes the last supper didn’t happen yet, but John’s narrative is kinda different from the others. John was written 20-30 years after the synoptic gospels and his style is more poetic. Sometimes he has foreshadowing or simply says something that will happen. For instance, at one point early in the gospel he refers to Judas Iscariot as something like “the one who would betray Jesus” way before Judas betrays him.
I’ve read the Confessions of Augustine and he emphasized the Eucharist at one point. He said something like “that holy bread that gives life” and other things. Other places in Augustine he makes reference to the Eucharist,
“I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ” (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]).
“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction” (Sermons, 272).
Not all bread, but only that which receives the blessing of Christ, becomes Christ’s body. {Sermons 234}
Eat Christ, then; though eaten He yet lives, for when slain He rose from the dead. Nor do we divide Him into parts when we eat Him: though indeed this is done in the Sacrament, as the faithful well know when they eat the Flesh of Christ, for each receives his part, hence are those parts called graces. Yet though thus eaten in parts He remains whole and entire; eaten in parts in the Sacrament, He remains whole and entire in Heaven. {Mai 129, 1; cf. Sermon 131; on p.65}
Here’s an interesting perspective from Augustine on the “hard teaching”
“The very first heresy was formulated when men said: “this saying is hard and who can bear it [Jn 6:60]?” {Enarr. 1, 23 on Ps. 54; on p.66}
As for cannibalism, one reason the early Christians in Rome were persecuted is because the Eucharist was seen as cannibalism by opponents of Christianity.
but the list of denominations and their documented historical founders did point in a direction. I submit that the direction was away - and not toward Christ.
I guess He got it back in time for the Resurrection… 
