Rice is an interesting creature. When rice is alive, it's great to watch swim. When the rice is growing, the growers have to be quiet, or the young rice will get scared, and when you scare rice, you stunt its growth. If the rice doesn't grow big and strong, the crop's yield will be stunted for the next three generations, it is believed the reason for this is caused by poor parenting as a direct result of the abuse incurred. Widely known in the biological community as "broken home syndrome".
The growth cycle of rice is a complicated procedure, and they must be kept in a warm, happy, and extremely damp environment. Their diet early-on in life isn't too complicated, however they must have a steady supply of murky water. They tend to enjoy water with large amounts of organic compounds, rather than synthetic fertilizers. The standard agricultural fertilizers are considered toxic to them. When the rice grows tall, it's matured to the point of sexual reproduction, after the male leaves have released their gametes, and that fusion has induced the production of a zygote, then the actual rice grows.
During the sexual reproduction phase, the caretakers normally flood the field, in order to assist the formation of the zygote, and the growth of the zygote into a fetus. After the fetus has begun to mature, the field is drained, and then flooded again, to remove the dead, un-matured fetuses, and all remnants of the sexual process. As observed with human reproduction, the leftover gametes tend to hurt the maturation of rice, thus affecting the self-esteem, hopes and dreams, and the eventual career choices.
After the rice has grown, it decides to leave the nest. After the rice has left the nest, the mother dies, the rice goes into a grieving state and begins to stop eating. The rice eventually starve themselves into a thin, dry, and sexy form and figure. Thus rice then begins the slow and steady decline into full-blown adulthood. At this point, there are two paths the rice can choose: the path to brilliance, or the path of forced sexual reproduction in the chicken-coop style sex-worker procreation farm.
If the rice doesn't get trapped by the poor parenting and upbringing of the fore-generations of rice who were scared by loud noises such as gunfire, genocide, gang-rape, or abuse by the stern overlord of the farm, it can grow to become a beautiful creature, complete with a sunset-filled happy ending. However, if the strange and unholy influence of the world comes into their hearts, instead of the lord, this will be nothing more than a dream of the parents who wish nothing more than to see their children prosper in the good light of the lord.
The happy, yet still sad alternative is when the rice prospers. When the rice gets aerated, it tastes the real world for the first time. If this taste brings the world into view, as it flies into the air and smells their first whiff of the world. If their first smell is the smell of freedom, and free-roaming rice, they'll stick to the straight and narrow, and eventually become something to behold, such as a gourmet dish prepared by an anglicized Itame in a psudo-japanise restaurant.
The process of cooking rice, in the normal, inhumane, barbaric, process involving boiling water, completes the process of the rice turning into a fulfilling human-edible dish. During the process, the dormant rice comes out of the chemically induced coma, it warms up in the hot water, then soaks in the water, much like a reverse steam bath. The newly, hydrated rice then begins the final phase of life, the decline and eventual death.
During the process, the rice over-absorbs water, thus breaking their cell walls. After this has occurred, the rice is legally deceased. An easy way to tell this is to check the hardness of the rice. If it crunches in your teeth, this has not happened, however, if it is soft and squishy like a tub of Jell-O brand gelatin, it's dead. This genocide brings life into full circle.