Raw rice (aka the rice we commonly know) is, well, not exactly RAW per se. When we say “raw rice,” we’re referring to rice that hasn’t been processed or steamed beforehand. This is your standard white rice or brown rice. We’re going to be referring to rice in its original consumable form as “raw rice,” FYI.

When we say raw rice, we don’t mean actually eating the raw grains. Eating rice raw can actually be extremely poisonous and bad for our diets. However, raw rice is usually referenced as raw white rice, where no boiling takes place during the paddy processing. That means the paddy rice must be cooked all the way down to reveal the raw polished white grains.

Many people eat raw rice because of the belief that raw rice is divine and should only be eaten without human processing.

Raw paddy rice is dried to 11% moisture or even less. Without boiling, it is directly milled into brown rice. Then, the brown rice is actually polished into white rice.

There are several types of raw rice: long-grain, short-grain or medium-grain, to name a few. The most commonly eaten rice is white rice, which has its husk, bran, and germ removed.

Each style of rice has different cooking times and varies depending on how you cook them. Rice cookers can create a more even cook but may take longer while stovetop cooking may expedite the process. Cooking times generally are long-grain and medium-grain rice for 15 minutes; short-grain varieties for 20 minutes; and brown rice for 30 minutes.