[IAmBroom]

You're buying into the "everyone else was drab misery" image of the past.

Even the poor wore colored clothing, not the uniform drab depicted in movies. Dyeing cloth with common weeds is a worldwide custom.

All but the truly poor lived indoors with a fire, either in a fireplace or centrally located beneath a peak smoke hole in the roof.

In all but the leanest times, chickens were easily raised by most people. Hogs were also common - there are even laws about raising them inside cities! That being said, its possible many meals were meatless, but the prevalence of meatless fasting rules suggest most people had access to meat - you can't "prove your faith through deprivation" if you're always deprived. Furthermore, serfs had access to the low-grade meats from butchering, and could keep it fresh with fat preservation, salting, or smoking.