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There are two Greek expressions for eating: one is 'to eat' in the general e.g. "I ate breakfast this morning" - which could mean I had a Smoothie on the way into work. No one ever says "I drank breakfast this morning".

The Greek meaning of "to eat" in the translation of John Ch. 6 means "to gnaw" - not "to eat" as in the above example, but to GNAW as in, to eat a piece of steak with your teeth.

Without knowing this, you could easily assume that "to eat" is simply "to consume" in whatever sense you want it to mean. "To gnaw", however, is not a general action.

If you accept the literality of John 6 when it comes to Jesus becoming bread at the Eurcharist, then you must also take the statements in John 6 literally where Jesus states that "I am the bread".

It's all about context. Without context, you have nothing but words that you can unilaterally pick and choose as literal or symbolic. What's the point of Jesus making reference to His ascension in the middle of all of this? The flesh profits me NOTHING. It's USELESS. Only the spirit - FAITH - will profit my soul. Why on earth is He telling His disciples to take this teaching on faith if He could just as easily explain the "symbology" as He does in other "parables"? You're applying a modus operandi to Jesus that He displays nowhere else in the Bible. Jesus didn't teach to confuse. He taught that others would understand. Any guesses why He doesn't re-explain His teaching? Because there is no other explanation. It's not a metaphor. It's not a cute way of speaking in riddles. You cannot rationalize your position, period, end of sentence.

Well if that was meant to be taken literally, then at the incarnation Jesus did not take on Human flesh, he only appeared to take on human flesh.

You answered your own question in pointing out that Jesus isn't literally a vine. Why not? It says so right there! Context, maybe?

Answer this, if you don't mind:

St. Paul in Corinthians says, "Whosoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.

In Jesus' time, being guilty of someone's 'body and blood' was a direct accusation of murder. If that's the case, how is "the bread" just bread? Can bread be murdered? No, but flesh can...