Doesn't it have to be metaphorical to avoid cannibalism? It would appear so.
(Anyway, the Lord specifically said that He used metaphors to trip up his enemies. So, we need to be very, very careful--lest we be discovered on the wrong side!)
Curiously, the pagan Romans accused the early Christians of cannibalism, precisely because the earliest Christians did not think it was metaphorical. No one questioned the Real Presence for the first 800 years of Christianity. The early Christians were unanimous that it was not metaphorical.