This is a really interesting question. In fact, now I have the same question :)
With my 11 days of Japanese experience, this is what I discovered. Hopefully, someone more experienced can confirm or deny :)
食べ物 (たべもの) - a general word for food
食物 (しょくもつ) - food and beverage, foodstuff, anything suitable for the consumption of food, nutriment, it can be combined with other kanji for example to say Food Pyramid 食物金字塔
食物 (たべもの) - a shorter form of tabemono
食い物 (くいもの) - ripped off, exploited, almost as if eaten by a person to gain at one's own personal expense, in fact 食い物 テロ
食料 (しょくりょう) - the meaning seems to modify depending on any additional kanji added, almost acting like an adjective modifier, for example when combined with 品, 食料品 means grocery store, and when 自 is added to 食料, the resulting kanji tends to have a scientific meaning, such as 食料自給率 which roughly translates as the food self-sufficiency ratio, and mathematically is the ratio of number of calories domestically supplied by a nation divided by total number of calories supplied by that nation
飯 (めし) - cooked rice, when combined with 御, the new word 御飯 means meal
食品 (しょくひん) - because 品 means "thing", it seems that 食品 can act as a general adjective to modify other kanji to create a compound word, for example 食品安全 means food safety, 食品包装 means food packaging, but it seems that these new compound words are more commonly used in Chinese
餌 (えさ) - bait, feed, animal feed
I hope this was helpful.. and I hope someone more experienced can verify this. Thank you! :)
April 12, 2014 at 2:08pm