My grandmother used to but chicken in instalments... This is in the UK in post war years before the US flooded Europe with battery farmed chicken. This led to the 'Chicken Tax' (see SUV/Trucks). My grandmother would only eat chicken on special occasions, a birthday, a wedding anniversary etc.

Easter has this 'egg theme', again, eggs were not a year round thing. Available at Easter and sometimes later in the year if chickens had a 'second brood'.

So, no, 100 years ago meat was scarce and valued, not wolfed down without a second thought.

"Hunting down animals on the savannah" doesn't scale to 8 billion people. Especially if your goal is that each of those 8 billion people needs to have access to the full variety of every possible type of meat, prepared in every possible way... for cheap, and in massive quantities.