I found some bags of flour that I had stored in a drawer in my office that is a good three years old. Its smells fine, it is still good?
Judy
Judy, before I began storing all of my flour and corn meal in my freezer, I had some that was stored in sealed bags in my pantry. I found that after a couple of years, the flour and corn meal had gone flat. Each time I pulled some out of those bags, I had to add a bit of baking powder to it to get it to rise properly. It worked well enough for me.
I taste, rather than smell flour to see if it's good. But don't try this if you have a bad immune system. It's the flour, not the eggs, that gets people sick with food poisoning in cookie dough.
As soon as you grind grain etc the vitamins become divide quickly. Old flour will provide just carbohydrates for energy etc. You don't loose the minerals. The fats will also be useless.