Half a millennia ago was about the same time as early-modern capitalism was developed… It’s just a coincidence I’m sure, but still thought it was funny to point out. That being said, I agree with you that there wasn’t a time “before people were shitty”, but I must point out that we’ve developed tech to such a level that we’re actively destroying our own environment. Also, OP is correct when they said that we actively shifted from killing what was needed and saving the rest for later, to our current profit-driven method of breeding and butchering as many animals as physically possible just for the sake of selling more and keeping the machines running efficiently.

I’d be willing to forgive all of that if we were somehow able to eliminate hunger through these production methods (something well within our capability to accomplish), but having worked in the food service industry for over a decade, being told to throw away pounds and pounds and pounds of perfectly good food every day, watching coworkers get punished for even ASKING if they could take any of it home, and constantly given some bullshit reasoning of “oh we wouldn’t want to be sued if someone claims they ate our food and got sick” as the sole justification to why it was immediately trashed, I’m honestly just sick of all the bullshit. The fact that we have a hyper-efficient food industrial complex that produces more than we know what to do with AND a nation-wide food-affordability problem that seems to exclusively effect the most vulnerable, should not be two facts that coexist