Handwriting Certain Radicals
They are just different writing styles which we can tolerate.Because the governments in Chinese using regions have established standards on which is the right way (正體字, lit. correct form character) and which is the wrong way (異體字, lit. different form character), these typefaces are used less and less.

Please see:


中文字元資料頁：港標中文網 for the right and wrong ways to write in Hong Kong
You might want to check this one especially: 《〈常用字字形表〉異體字表》 (pdf檔)
, note that the left side is the standard form in Hong Kong and the right side is a wrong form.
標準國字研討 for the right and wrong ways to write in Taiwan and the rules on how to create a Traditional Chinese font for use in Taiwan


I'm not studying language, but as far as I know, the modern Chinese typeface is based on Seal Script and how it was evolved. Each component of a character in Seal Script corresponds to "the basic 8 strokes" and this is how the Ming/Song typeface is based on.

And so, because of this very fact, Hong Kong and Taiwan defines different characters as the "correct form", one example might be  (left: HK; right: TW)



And you mentioned "食":



from: http://www.zdic.net/z/28/zy/98FD.htm In the second row, you can see the correct form in different regions: (left to right) Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Old typeface. The third row are different forms of "飽" that means the same but not considered standards and I know none of them except "饱" which is used in Mainland China.

For comparison, this is the same character in Seal Script, so you can see how the curvy lines are adapted into straighter lines:



from http://www.chineseetymology.org