What are the consequences of a monk eating meat? This is not a question about being a vegetarian. My question is since the Buddha didn't prohibit monks from eating meat, and since monks are supposed to be easy to maintain and take what is offered, how should/would a monk who has chosen to be a vegetarian handle being offered meat by a lay person?

If they chose to refuse the meal would that make them high maintenance, proud or unappreciative? If they ate it, how would they reconcile that with their personal practice?

I'm particularly interested in an answer from any monastic on how they have handled or would handle this.
As far as the theory of monastics eating meat is concerned, here are two enlightening videos/articles on the subject:


Ask A Monk: Mark Zuckerberg, Vegetarianism and Killing
The Bhikkhus' Rules
A Guide for Laypeople -- Meat Eating


In Buddhism, the problem with eating meat is in many ways as much about the craving that meat promotes as it is about the non-violence and killing aspect. For a monastic, the rules regarding eating and alms are very much about not giving in to either greed or hatred for a specific food; a monastic should be totally content with what little or lot he has. Thus, if a monastic were offered meat, to decline would represent preference and "pickiness", which is in many ways much worse than simply being grateful for what one has. This is true even if you may oppose how your food was made/grown/processed/ etc. 

Anecdotally, I'll note that I've found food in particular to have a tremendous emotional resonance with people -- we've all seen people become literally angry when confronted with to little or too much or too different a food. Buddhism is all about overcoming this emotional attachment to something that should only matter insofar as it is absolutely necessary to survive.