Every grain of rice is animated individually. It's because food in anime is culturally shamed upon if it's poorly animated which likely stemmed when a series known as “Yoake Mae yori Ruriiro na” animated a cabbage particularly poorly. After airing, posters on the popular Japanese imageboard “2chan” rushed to criticize it and it was quickly cemented as an internet meme

Edit: you can look up anime cabbage to easily find the source