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Maybe domestication more than industrialization. Were there other animal species that used to be more commonly grown by farmers that disappeared with industrialization?

Not disappeared but lost significance: goats, Camel, horses (for meat), rabbits, eels, various poultry, and of course a 99% reduction of the commercially grown varieties of pigs, cows and chicken (now called „heritage breeds“)

Goat meat is still eaten by 70% of the world's population apparently - and perhaps surprisingly Australia is the single largest exporter. But it's certainly a niche market compared to the big 3. Even lamb/mutton is only eaten at 1/6th the quantities of beef worldwide.

Was goat, lamb and mutton ever big in the US? How little lamb is available was one of the things that stuck out to me when moving from Germany to the US many years ago

That’s it. There where not many animals that are good for domestication. For example rabbits and pigeons are beeing eaten in France but even here it is uncommon because the have to much bones in relation to meat compared to a chicken or cow. Other animals are to hard to domesticate. For examples lions.

>I think this is an obvious side effect of industrialization. We got really good at factory farming chickens/cows/pigs/etc. and catching/processing certain fish, like tuna, sardines, salmon, etc. so that's the cheapest meat to get to market and the cheapest to buy, so that's what we eat.

I think you're right, or at least it's a major reason.

Before this article I have also observed that the only wild animals that people generally eat (at least in much of the developed world) is seafood. Most other meat, for most people, is farmed. Its not uncommon to eat fish that someone caught from the ocean, but it is uncommon to eat a bird that was shot out of the sky.

Deer is pretty common because of hunting, especially in America and probably Scotland too. Any wild animal that is a problem is still eaten e.g kangaroo in Australia, boar in Hawaii.

Well, I would say it's the most common. But it still seems like a vast minority of people eat it with any regularity. I'm not sure what that measure would be. Something like once every few months. As opposed to "I tried it a couple times." kinda thing. I eat it a couple times a year maybe which I think is more than the average person.

>salt cod was very common in an area I used to live

Cod was much more common period prior to 1992.

What happened in 1992?

The Atlantic northwest cod population collapsed in that year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_north...

Which was a great boost to lobster populations (Cod prey on lobster), we managed to over-fish those too though.

Right. Likewise, there are many unusual materials we could make our houses out of, but for economic efficiency we mostly make them out of some combination of wood, stone, clay, steel, and chemical binders thereof.