Shelf Life of Tapioca

Someone gave me a pound of large pearl tapioca that you soak and then cook with milk, sugar, eggs, etc, to make tapioca pudding. It came from a bulk food store that closed about 2 years ago. There is no date of any kind on the bag. Would it still be OK to use? Is there a shelf life on tapioca pearls?

Thanks for any help- I appreciate it!

The shelf life of unopened tapioca pearls is 6 mos. to a year.  They may have been beyond their shelf life when you got them.

Typically, a bulk food store buys flour, meal, and other dry staples in 50-pound bags and repackages them into 1-2 pound bags as needed.

If you were to walk back into their warehouse, you might see a pallet of 50-pound bags of Gold Meadow flour.  This pallet might last them for a year or more. 

I don't recommend buying these types of items from a bulk food store.  You don't know how old it really is, the initial quality isn't any better than what you can buy in a supermarket, and the price per pound is usually higher than what you'd pay in a supermarket.

Bulk food stores have some good well-priced products,  but flour, meal, and other dry staple items aren't included in that category.

I would use it.  I think that throwing out food due to a perceived thought that it is 'less than fresh'. is wrong. Unless you see mold, discolorization or they are sticking together, I feel it should be okay.


mark

We make tapioca pudding from time to time  using the small minute tapioca from a sealed jar that must be at least 10 years old, and it works just fine. Our experience seems to confirm that minute tapioca has a shelf life of approximately forever.

Cheers, John  

I used to drink with a guy who had a tapioca mine outside Coalinga, California. It was right next to his mercury mine.
 
I guess that's why his tapioca was so shiny. 

That almost  explains the longevity of our tapioca. I understand it was a biproduct of uranium mining someplace in the west...

Cheers, John 

Ack, sorry. Got sucked into replying to a three-year-old thread. No more posting before I finish my coffee!

It's funny that someone would think to give away Tapioca that's from a store that closed two years prior to the gift.