Congratulations to China’s working class — they have officially entered the “Livestock Feed 2.0” era. While others are still researching how to achieve healthy and balanced diets, China has already evolved to the point where it does not matter whether you are actually eating food, as long as you can swallow it. There is no need for cooking, chewing or making decisions — just tear open a package, add some hot water and in a short three minutes you have something that can keep you alive for at least another six hours.
This is not science fiction — it is reality. A single bottle of Ruffood (若飯) can reduce the fundamental human right of eating into a form of mechanized livestock feeding.
Ruffood is essentially a kind of human feed — its formula contains protein, fats, vitamins and dietary fiber, with all the nutrients neatly packaged together. It is reminiscent of the rudimentary paste that cyborg police officer James Murphy eats in the movie Robocop.
Ruffood’s founder, Shao Wei (邵煒), known by the nickname Bo En (伯恩), is a software engineer who invented the product to accommodate China’s notorious “996” work culture — that is, working 9am to 9pm six days a week.
Frustrated with the lack of time he had to eat with his busy work schedule, he created this lazy man’s porridge to eliminate the time-consuming meal process from his daily life altogether.
As it turned out, Ruffood sells shockingly well. When it was launched in 2015, it generated about 17 million yuan (US$2.37 million) in sales and by 2020, it had surpassed the 100 million yuan mark. This year, the newest iteration of Ruffood’s liquid version sold 24,000 units instantly upon its launch — as if the entire working population collectively entered a state of automated self-feeding.
This is no technological triumph — it is a regression of human nature, a compromise forced upon those with the blade of capital pressed against their throats.
Several comments from Chinese Internet users, such as: “What is the point of living like this?” and “You might as well pair it with an automatic feeder to maximize efficiency,” reflect a deep, shared anxiety among the nation’s working class — when even having a meal is regarded as a waste of time, society as a whole is already terminally ill.
A blogger from China’s Hebei Province wrote: “How anxious are these bosses that they won’t even allow their employees to eat? What’s next — installing IV drips at your desk?”
That user should be careful not to give them any ideas. Given the creative lengths to which Chinese capitalism is willing to go, it is entirely possible that an office-ready IV nutrition pack will be launched — just hook yourself up and you are ready to go.
In China, people have been reduced to self-exploiting and self-feeding animals. From premade meals to human feed, eating a meal has lost all meaning.
The real force behind this shift is systemic violence: For years, China’s working class has been crushed under the weight of the nation’s oppressive work culture.
Research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences showed that more than 60 percent of young Chinese felt they were on the brink of burnout. Rest is a hard-earned privilege, and these “life-sustaining” foods fly off the shelves.
As for the price, one bottle is just 30 yuan. For workers earning just a few thousand yuan per month and struggling to afford three meals per day, this is not a healthy lifestyle choice — it is a survival food they have no choice but to swallow.
In China, living like a normal human has become a luxury. Cooking a meal takes too much time and takeout is too expensive — as long as you can swallow Ruffood, it is good enough. After all, who has the time to care about frivolous matters such as flavor or dignity?
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) constantly touts slogans like “common prosperity” and “a moderately prosperous society,” while citizens are being deprived of even the basic right to eat a proper meal. While party elites proclaim the grand revival of the so-called “China dream,” those at the bottom are living in a nightmare, while in the moments they should spend sharing a meal, all they can do is choke down a bland spoonful of nutrition paste.
If this is what the CCP calls modernization, then it seems China’s progress is nothing but treating its people like dogs and feeding them like pigs. When a regime exploits its people for labor and degrades their quality of life, packaging it with flowery language like “efficiency,” “modernity” and “technology,” that is not progress — it is regression in disguise. When eating becomes nothing more than a means of survival, people should ask themselves: Is such a society fit for human life?
Tseng Chien-ju is the pen name of a legislative assistant.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
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