http://www.ivu.org/history/east/buddha.html
1. Many sources say Buddha died
from eating bad mushrooms, not pork. It is understood that the
Buddha taught his monks against killing animals, but, since they
were to live on alms, to accept meat given to them so long as the
animal had not been killed specifically for their benefit. However,
people who offered food to Buddha would have certainly known his
preference for vegetarian meals, so may have prepared fitting
food.
2. While there have been arguments that he ate meat when it was
given as an alm, there are just as many arguments to the contrary
(See To Cherish all Life by Roshi P. Kapleau). It is against the
basic tenants of Buddhism to eat meat, and only those who whish to
justify meat eating will argue differently.
3. The Buddha was most certainly a vegetarian. There are many
sutras composed after his death containing almost any imaginable
sort of distortion or misrepresentation of the original teachings,
so the fact that some sutra somewhere (or even many) claim that he
ate meat is in itself meaningless. The only important criterion is
what those sutras which are indisputably authentic say. These,
without exception, very strongly advocate, even mandate,
vegetarianism. I am a medical student at the Albert Einstein Collge
of Medicine in NYC, and was a history major concentrating on Asian
history, at Cornell U. I have lived in Japan for two and a half
years, and my wife is Japanese and Buddhist. (She eats meat, just
as many Christians do not forgive their enemies, etc. The practice
of the nominal followers of the founder of a religion is no guide
to the lives or even teachings of that founder.)