If He meant it literally, why didn’t He simply slice off a piece of his arm and drip the blood into the cup, instead of using....symbolism?
...just asking
No Catholic claims that transubstantiation is readily discernable for what it is to the mere casual gaze. It takes faith. Yet that faith is not groundless, if one believes His words in Scripture, and understands what the Church itself saw in these words from the very beginning. Again, as I stated earlier, no Christian body denied any of this until 1500 years after Christ ordered that that "ceremony" involving bread and wine be done repeatedly after His ascension.
If He were God, and wanted it to be otherwise, he certainly knew what was to happen regarding His future Church's "misconstrual" of His intent, and could have forstalled it by using clearer language at both the institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday and the Bread of Life speech in John 6. Yet, He did not do anything like that. Why? Well, perhaps because, in spite of "appearances," the bread and wine you see actually are the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ after all!
It takes a special arrogance for some Christians to remake the Eucharist into something totally different from what had been done for 1500 years without protest, and then claim that they have the scoop on Christ's original intent! Especially if one supposes that, as God, He knew the future and could see what would happen to His intentions concerning the Eucharist. If what happened was not His intention, He could have ensured that things happened differently. He did not. Because what the Church did - from the beginning - was and is what He intended! Think it through.