Tapioca contains toxic substances for linseed bitter glycosides, if ingested raw or uncooked tapioca or drink its soup, may cause poisoning. The reason for this is that linseed bitter glycoside or linseed bitter glycosidase hydrolyzed by gastric acid produces free hydrocyanic acid, thus poisoning the human body. To prevent cassava poisoning, cassava can be eaten before peeling, with clear water soak potato flesh, so that cyanogenic glycosides dissolved. Generally about 6 days of soaking can remove 70% of the cyanide, and then heated and cooked, can be eaten.

But not all cassava is poisonous, now there is a kind of bread cassava is can be eaten directly, without pretreatment. If you want to dry it, it is recommended to remove the cassava skin first if you are not sure of the cassava variety (note that it must be peeled cleanly, leaving only the white part).

Tapioca flour is similar to flour in that it is the cassava root directly ground into a powder. Tapioca starch, on the other hand, is a polysaccharide substance that has been washed and filtered several times to wash away proteins and other substances. The two uses are different, if cooking, the flour is mainly used to make buns bread and make fried (fritters, tenderloin, Kentucky Fried Wings, etc.), but also to make pancakes and so on. Starch is generally used for thickening, cooking soup, making cold skin, etc.. Appearance starch color is whiter and purer.