Black & Decker Rice Cooker

We have a B&D rice cooker that quit working. When you plug it in, the light indicates 'warm' but the switch won't work when you depress it. I took the bottom off but couldn't see anything that would lock when you hit the switch. It is out of warranty, so the $64 dollar question is: can you replace the switch or as is usual in cases like this, it's just cheaper and easier to buy a new one.

Reply to
Steve Scully
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*I would try calling Black and Decker first to see if a replacement switch is available.
Reply to
John Grabowski

Best would be to stop eating rice. All of it has arsenic. Some of it (like brown rice) has a lot. The full report is in the November 2012 Consumer Reports.

Being an online CR subscriber it isn't easy for me to tell which articles are available to non-subscribers. But numerous links are here:

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Don.
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Reply to
Don Wiss

You no need rice cooker, cook authentic in pan of boiling water on stove.

Reply to
Yenhsi Chang

Yes, "authentic" is better. There is less arsenic when cooked the traditional way. Americans tend to add the exact amount of water, so that it is all absorbed. The traditonal way was in boiling water with the water then poured off through a strainer. Doing it this way will reduce the arsenic, as much will go out with the water.

Don.

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Reply to
Don Wiss

Hi, Throw out that junk. Go to a Japanese or Korean grocery store and buy a micro processor controlled automatic rice/pressure cooker. Just put in rinsed rice, measured water. Close the lid and lock it. Push a button after selecting menu. It is done in about 20 mins. You can cook many other things with it. One in our kitchen is ~5 years old and still working fine. Cheapest plain cooker is about 10.00 bucks.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Just switch to foreign-grown rice. It's the US-grown rice that has the biggest problem, thanks to the poultry and pig producers feeding arsenic-laced feed to their animals. The manure is used in rice fields and is picked up by the rice.

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

Let me go back and reread the article... The article does not specifically state that foreign-grown is better, but none of the six foreign-grown that they tested is in red.

That is only part of the problem. I quote from Consumer Reports:

"White rice grown in Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Texas, which account for 76 percent of domestic rice, generally had higher levels of total arsenic and inorganic arsenic in our tests than rice samples from elsewhere.

"That south-central region of the country has a long history of producing cotton, a crop that was heavily treated with arsenical pesticides for decades in part to combat the boll weevil beetle."

Don.

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Reply to
Don Wiss

I have the Consumer Reports article open for my other post, so let me quote what they wrote about this:

Change the way you cook rice

---------------------------- You may be able to cut your exposure to inorganic arsenic in rice by rinsing raw rice thoroughly before cooking, using a ratio of 6 cups water to 1 cup rice for cooking and draining the excess water afterward. That is a traditional method of cooking rice in Asia. The modern technique of cooking rice in water that is entirely absorbed by the grains has been promoted because it allows rice to retain more of its vitamins and other nutrients. But even though you may sacrifice some of rice's nutritional value, research has shown that rinsing and using more water removes about

30 percent of the rice's inorganic arsenic content.

Don.

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Reply to
Don Wiss

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