The Buddha and pork

I found this interesting piece of information in Swami Vikrant's book, Indian Spirituality:

The Buddhist ecumenical Council of Vaisali had explicitly ordered that Buddhist monks should not accept any gift from the laity other than food and that too only once a day. They should eat what the people offer, including meat. The Buddha is said to have died of dysentery by eating stale pork meat, offered by a poor devotee, who had nothing else to offer the Blessed One.

Well that's it is a lesson for us to learn, especially those of us who quip so often about food (or lack of 'tasty food').