Tapioca

[scoobysoo]

What food group is this? Is it some sort of cereal like rice pudding is?

[don1]

according to dictionary.com


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=tapioca

[nickmo]

Tapioca comes under 'cereals, grains and pastas'. It is the starch from the root of a shrubby plant (cassava plant) that can either be 'seed pearl' or 'large'.

Comes in different colours - white, clear or black. Cook before eating - usually boiled in milk, coconut milk etc, and can be eaten hot or cold. Nutritionally pointless - no vitamins to speak of, no fibre, no fat - its just starch. Any benefit comes from the rest of the stuff cooked with it. See: http://www.astray.com/recipes/?search=tapioca for 52 things to do with tapioca......

Helpful to know that the cassava plant makes poison to stop animals from eating it (cyanide based actually) and an original use of tapioca was to tip poison arrows - and school dinners of course!

[scoobysoo]

Thanks very much

[alfiebrady]

Trivia: it was discovered as a food by an explorer lost in a South American jungle. Despondent, he decided to end it all by boiling up the root of the cassava plant - known to be poisonous...and ended up eating tapioca.