Rice is an important source of food for a major portion of the world's population, with a production capacity of about 700 MTPA. Thus efforts are being made continuously to improve the yields of rice crops and also to make them more nutritious. Of the total energy consumption in the world, a sizeable amount, about 40%, is used for cooking purposes in the developing world. Existing methods of cooking are about 10-15% thermally efficient. The ever increasing population will need more amount of energy to be spent on cooking purposes. Thus more efficient methods of cooking need to be developed. For this purpose the kinetics of cooking of rice grains must be well understood. It is known that the kinetics is a combination of complex fluid mechanics outside and inside the grains and intrinsic reactions. This paper analyses the published work and presents a critical review in terms of rate controlling steps and the estimation of overall rates of cooking. An attempt has also been made to suggest improvements in the energy efficiency of cooking process. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.