The idea that taking away food also takes away what's human reminds me of Dazai Osamu's "Ningen Shikkaku"[1], where the narrator wrote in the first chapter that

The idea that taking away food also takes away what's human reminds me of Dazai Osamu's "Ningen Shikkaku"[1], where the narrator wrote in the first chapter that he had no idea what being hungry means, that he never understood what it means to feel hungry. People must eat to survive and thus must work in order to eat, but because the narrator never felt hungry, he does not understand how humans operated at all. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Longer_Human https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Longer_Human "No Longer Human" seem to be the official English title, although a more literal translation would be "disqualified as human".