You Should Always Rinse Rice Before Cooking It. Here's Why
There are some directions that are easy to disregard when you read them in a recipe. Lots of home cooks likely roll their eyes when they read instructions to defrost frozen vegetables. Those peas will probably be just fine if you throw them in your pot roast without defrosting them. The same goes for minuscule measurements. Who among us has measured out 1/16th of a teaspoon of something? Just add a "pinch!"
Cooks are more likely to ignore suggestions for dishes they know how to make well. One dish that many people have problems making is rice, so it pays to follow every detail as rice can be as finicky, even though it seems simple. One recipe suggestion that is wise to heed when it comes to making rice is "rinse the rice until the water runs clear," regardless of whether you're cooking sushi rice, basmati rice, or jasmine rice.
Why rinsing rice pays off
Rice is a starch, and dry, residual starch from processing, as well as the grains rubbing together in their container, can result in a fine starch powder. If you cook the rice with the starch powder and all, the grains of rice will stick to each other, and produce the dreaded gummy consistency you don't want (via Eat This Not That!).
Another important reason to rinse rice is that it will remove other unwanted protein additions to your rice. As gross as it may sound, you might find that bugs (commonly known as rice weevils) will float to the top. Because they float, it's easier to separate and remove them than it would be to pick through them piece by piece (via Bugwiz). Unless you're fighting an infestation in the grain cabinet in your kitchen and are trying to eradicate every trace of these weevils, accidentally consuming a few won't hurt you (via Livestrong).