Eli5: why does rice not come washed?
In: Other
Rice starts out covered in a hard brown outer layer called “bran”. Commonly rice is “polished” where it is tumbled and rubbed against other rice grains in order to remove the bran layer, abrading it away into a fine powder to reveal the inner white rice kernel. This inner layer is much more able to absorb water and is softer.
So why isn’t all the starchy powder washed away? Well, as mentioned the kernel is much more prone to absorbing water and drying it out before it fell apart, molded, deformed, etc. would be very difficult. But even if you did manage that the rice is going to be shipped to the customer in a big bag where all the soft kernels are going to be tumbled around against each other, meaning… more rice powder is rubbed off! It isn’t a whole lot but it is enough starch powder that washing it off can prevent a sticky mess!
Some people don’t like it washed, so it gives you the option of either. It’s generally a culture thing to think of it as dirty, but some companies even add extra nutrients as a dusting on top that washing would remove. [An interesting video](https://youtu.be/B3CHsbNkr3c) about washing rice.
Once you wash it you need to cook it. It would be difficult to wash the rice then dry it out again without it getting moldy, growing bacteria, or clumping up. It would also add to handling costs for the producers in order to do all that which would make the product cost more.
There are basically two broad categories of rice dishes one involves washing rice to remove starch. This produces fluffy individual rice which is common in Asian cuisine. The second is unwashed rice which takes advantage of the extra startch to create a creamy texture. This is common in Italian cuisine. While bot washing rice might seem crazy to none westerners, because of taste or cleanliness, we don’t have those problems we by very clean rice in small sealed containers such that the small amount of fat never goes rancid. Rice isn’t pre washed for at least the reason that a large number of American dishes require starchy rice. (There may be other reasons as well this is just a different reason from the ones in other comments)
One reason is cost. The process of washing would involve several extra stages, like drying. This costs both time and money. And if that isn´t done properly, the water used in washing would accumulate and increase the weight per volume unit of rice, which would affect the cost of tonnage in transportation.
Some dishes, like rice pudding, require the extra starch. So it makes more sense to sell unwashed rice and let the customer decide if they want to wash it or not
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