This is the moment a Chinese consumer finds floating black objects in a self-heating rice meal.

The product involves selling vacuum-packed pre-cooked rice in a packet that contains an exothermic agent that heats up when ordinary water is added, giving a ready-cooked meal on the go.

But in this case, the supposedly freshwater that was to be added to the rice had foreign objects inside it.

The woman, identified as Axin from the city of Jingzhou in the Chinese province of Hubei, shared images of the plastic bag with see-through liquid and then black floating pieces of what looked like mould.

She said it was in the water bag for a popular brand of self-heating rice.

Axin told Newsflash: “The objects were similar to mould, I guess the water purifier did not clean it properly and mould grew in it.”

The disgruntled consumer then posted a video on the Chinese social network Douyin to warn other customers not to assume that the water in the bag provided with the rice was safe.

She explained that she contacted the manufacturer to point out the problem, adding that she was not interested in compensation, only to protect future consumers.

Self-heating rice was originally created with the idea of being used in military operations it was difficult to heat up food or during natural disasters and other circumstances where traditional cooking options were not available.

The technology is particularly popular with the preparation of main courses such as meat, however, self-heating rice has become a popular alternative for people to have as a snack on the go.

In some cases, the chemicals are separated by different layers in the container that mix when a seal is broken, and in others the water needs to be manually added.