26? damn. I've only ever found 3 variants in my 20 hours of play in a world. Now that's not that much I know, but I too really don't see the point in that many variants.
I guess I've felt the same with some other aspects of the game. For example there's so many diverse versions of trees and logs, yet there's only a few basic animals. It feels a bit unbalanced in terms of variety. I guess my issue is not necessarily that there's 26 versions but that it overshadows the other options.
I wish there'd be more types of other food sources too, like more berries, fishes and the likes. I suppose that's also why the game is Early Access, we will see.