President of the Sri Lanka Canteen Owner’s Association Asela Sampath Acknowledges Uni Students Eating Poison

President of the Sri Lanka Canteen Owners’ Association Asela  Sampath said, that the students are eating unhealthy food and end up in getting diseases such as cancer and diabetes at a young age. Most of the products these local canteens use are expired products. Samples of canteen lunch packets and cheap spices were displayed to the media at the briefing. He further said,University students are more focused on other problems and ignore the poison they consume at their own universities endangering their lives. They don’t protest against the poor food quality at universities. When market prices increase, canteen owners reduce the quality of the food. So they are slowly but steadily killing these students. One of the main reasons for this state of affairs is university canteens are obliged under contract to sell a lunch packet at between Rs 30 and 60. Hence, canteen owners use the cheapest food  materials  to cook their meals to prevent any loss.

Meanwhile , Ranjith Withanage, Chairman of the National Movement for Consumer Rights Protection (NMCRP) at a media briefing yesterday said, students   must protest against the unhealthy food served in their canteens with the same vigour with which they protest against the SAITM issue.