Actually, Tibets did and still do eat a lot of meat. They love their
meat in fact.. and why not, since in the Himalayas you won't last long
on sprouts and plants. They take advantage of hanging up a yak carcass,
drying the meat out etc. Especially since meat rarely goes off there.

The Tantric form of Buddhism that Tibet took up also involves a lot of
meat eating in its rituals and other "non buddhist" elements such as
appeasing God forms, wrathful dieties etc. (though modern influences are
forcing Tibetan Buddhists to abandon many of these elements- the Dalai
Lama is also more geared to the new "vegetarian" thing and aims at
taking out many of the older tantric meat practices). 
Its no co-incidence Vajrayana took off in Tibet and died out everywhere
else. The indigenous religion of Tibet- Bon also cntains much appeasing
of spirits with meat sacrafice.

The media popularized "Buddhism" of bean sprouts and flowers is more
common in South East Asia where a vegetarian diet is POSSIBLE due to
climate, but still not followed 100%.. in fact many communities believe
in eating whatever is offered into the begging bowl.
The only form of Buddhism which strives fanatically not to eat meat is
the Chinese form which started around 1000 years ago only, and
incorporates the use of soy and wheat gluten into it.. going as far as
making "meat lookalike" foods such as 'mock chicken' and fake 'BBQ
pork'. Japanese temples which I visited often serve fish. Again, this
form of Buddhism is very recent.

reg.,
Dean, Oz.

>>
Wonder if he practices NeanderZen :-) I read somewhere also that
even though many Buddhists are vegetarians he over many years
has regularly eaten some meat on advice from doctors.
>>