Some say plastic wrap is fine for storing all manner of foods in the refrigerator or freezer. Others swear it’s the downfall of everything from a fine Gruyère to a leftover Golden Delicious. Here, four persistent plastic questions are answered by the experts.

Foods with a high acid content should be stored in plastic wrap, never aluminum foil.
True. High-acid foods, such as tomatoes, citrus, and most berries, react with aluminum and can take on a metallic taste. Keep them stored in plastic, says Bruce Mattel, an associate professor at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Most other raw and cooked vegetables can go in foil.

Plastic wrap keeps cut apples, bananas, peaches, and avocados from turning brown.
True, if it’s used correctly. These fruits are high in phenolic compounds, which react with oxygen in the air when the fruits are cut into, causing browning. To prevent this, press out all the air between the plastic and the cut face of the fruit. The same applies to that bowl of leftover guacamole, says Shirley Corriher, author of Cookwise: The Secrets of Cooking Revealed (Morrow Cookbooks, www.barnesandnoble.com, $30). When you cover it, press the plastic as evenly as possible over the guacamole’s surface to avoid having to scrape off an unsightly layer next time.

It’s a bad idea to wrap cheeses in plastic—it makes them taste funny.
True and false. It depends on the cheese. “Plastic wrap can be a cheese’s best friend or its worst enemy,” says Sue Conley, an artisanal cheese maker and a co-owner of the Cowgirl Creamery, in Point Reyes Station, California. Blue cheeses with a high water content, like Roquefort, don’t do well in plastic because the water leaches out to the wrap, causing a breakdown in consistency. And any cheese that’s still ripening (including most soft cheeses, such as Brie, as well as molding varieties) needs to be exposed to air; otherwise off odors—by-products of the maturing process—will accumulate inside the plastic. To keep soft and smelly cheeses in good shape while containing their odors, Conley recommends wrapping them first in wax or parchment paper, then loosely in one layer of plastic. But plastic wrap is fine to use directly on fully ripened cheeses and hard ones with rinds (like Cheddar, Parmesan, and Swiss), as long as they don’t sit unused for too long.

Plastic wrap keeps ice cream from developing that unsavory freezer-burn fuzz.
True. But don’t merely lay a piece over the top of the container, then pop the lid back on. “The wrap needs to be pressed into the surface of the ice cream to seal out air, which is what causes freezer burn,” says Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (Scribner, www.barnesandnoble.com, $40). This goes for all freezer-bound foods: Just make sure the wrap is flush on the surface.