“(It is the rejection of the Eucharist that is continued by Protestants today)”
They reason they left is they took it literal just like you rcc’s do and they knew it was a sin according to the commandment of God, the Law of Moses and the New Covenant Church.
If they would have taken the statement in the faith of Jesus Christ and Him alone they would have realized the statement was spiritual, John 4:24 and they would have not condemned themselves.
And yet one can hardly be said to be taking "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you," (1 Corinthians 11:24) and "Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:27-28) when, contrary to the manifestly physical crucified body and shed blood of Christ - which looked, smelled, behaved and would scientifically test as being real human flesh - this "true body and blood" called the "Eucharist" appears as bread and wine - which looks, smells, behaves and would scientifically test as being simply bread and wine.
Yet in Catholic theology the bread and wine do not even exist, but neither would the Eucharist scientifically test as being human, which is contrary to the Christ of Scripture, which emphasizes the manifest real physicality of the incarnated Christ (That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life: This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. (1 John 1:1; 5:6) , in contrast to a christ whose appearance did not correspond to what He physically was. (For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist: 2 John 7)
To take the "words of consecration" plainly literally would mean that what the apostles consumed was manifestly the same real manifestly human body and blood that proved that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
However, since (apart from a few purported Eucharistic miracles) Catholic priests cannot perform a literal change of bread and or wine into the same manifestly physical body and blood of Christ, then Catholicism had to appeal to faith in Catholicism (under the premise that God is behind it), and attempt to explain it with a contrived metaphysical explanation.