食　飲　魚　肉　好

The character 食 combines a lid (△) on top with a vessel of food below — a covered bowl ready to eat. The image captures a person bending toward the bowl, mouth open. Eating is the act of uncovering and consuming.

飲 is composed of the food/bowl radical 食 on the left and a person tilting their head back (欠) on the right — an open mouth leaning over a vessel. The right side 欠 shows a person yawning or opening wide to drink.

魚 is one of the most faithful pictographs in Japanese — it clearly shows a fish in profile with a head, body, fins, and tail. The three horizontal strokes at the bottom represent the fish's tail fins, still visible in the modern character.

肉 originated as a picture of a cut of meat with visible muscle layers — the two inner strokes represent the grain or marbling of flesh. When used as a radical in other kanji, it looks like 月 (moon) but means 'body / flesh', not 'moon'.

好 is a beautiful ideograph combining 女 (woman) on the left and 子 (child) on the right. A mother holding her child — what could be more 'good' or 'beloved'? This character expresses the universal feeling of deep affection and love.