Brown rice is a whole grain rice with the inedible outer hull removed. This kind of rice sheds its outer hull or husk but the bran and germ layer remain on, constituting the brown or tan colour of rice. White rice is the same grain without the hull, the bran layer, and the cereal germ. Red rice, gold rice, and black rice are all whole rices with differently pigmented outer layers.

A whole grain is a grain of any cereal and pseudocereal that contains the endosperm, germ, and bran, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm.