The food radical 饣 plus 我 'me': hunger is food's absence happening to me personally. The character construction is almost a complaint — me, without food. Few phonetic pairings land this well.
你饿不饿？我给你煮碗面 'Are you hungry? I'll cook you noodles' is the Cantonese-drama line every Chinese person knows — food as the mother tongue of care. 饿了么 'Hungry yet?' turned the question into one of China's two food-delivery empires.
Food 饣 missing from ME 我 — HUNGRY.
饿了么's blue riders and Meituan's yellow riders fight a daily two-color war on every Chinese street — the character 饿 is on a million jackets.