Eli5: Why is flour, the most potentially disastrous food substance outside of liquid. Typically kept in paper bags, the worst at disaster prevention.

Question

Edit: sorry I was a little sarcastic and misunderstood. I didn’t mean literally disastrous (like explosive as some have you mentioned). I meant just really annoying when spilled.

In: Other

Answer 1

Because paper bags are cheap and because the rate of this causing serious problems is approximately zero.

For flour to be dangerous you have to set it on fire and burn a lot of it at once. That means spreading lots of it in the air. If you run a mill, this can be a problem and you should be very careful about sources of flame. If you store packed flour or bake a cake at home, the danger is negligible.