Name the creature "animal". Now you have generic animal meat.
That works, I'd just have to make another one for "sentient" for humanoids with intelligence however that might confuse people seeing "prepare sentient brain" is it a brain that is alive and prepared to face the world? or a prepared brain of a creature that is sentient? My other option is "humanoid" making it clear that most of those that are sane wouldn't eat something that is apparently human like.
Or make two types - red meat and white meat
Hmm that idea sounds good too, but what about fish and crabs? do they count as white meat? Squid and Octopus?
just add a [DOES_NOT_EXIST] to your fake creatures. then they stop having preferences for it.
Also I suggest fake creatures for everything that creatures make that you would like to standardize.. such as leather (MDF named it rough), and blood, ooze etc (spilled) or fluffy for fake wool (which I made) lol... Its pretty easy we went the qualifier with DOES_NOT_EXIST and I've never seen a pref string for any of it..
Yeah that was the goal, fake creatures (or as I call them, Material Creatures) just so they hold the material definitions. And good shiz about the DOES_NOT_EXIST
EDIT:
so I might go with the "animal" idea from pikachu17 combined with DOES_NOT_EXIST from Amostubal. I like the Red meat, and White meat idea too, but if I ever wanted to add more pricey versions I'd have to double up "exotic white meat" "tainted red meat" etc.
Maybe I might adapt it, I just would like to keep the clutter down making DF to be a bit more useful rather than "here's 100 copies of the same thing"