It depends.  In some things prices have certainly escalated.  I don't buy dairy often but occasionally buy ice cream, and I've noticed the price goes up a dime or two pretty much once a month.  Amazing, really. 

And of course the price of gasoline is going up with the price of oil.  Here in Vermont, USA it is about $4 per gallon for regular.  I don't own a car though, so I don't need to buy it.

On the other hand, consumer electronics are falling in price.  I recently went in to upgrade my cell phone, and the one I bought costed about $50, which was $30 less than the one I bought when I started my plan and it is much nicer.  So with electronics I seem able to get something better for less, while in food and energy I am getting the same product for more.

So whether inflation matters in a practical sense would depend on what someone is spending most of their money on.

Fascinating.  Derrick Jensen (an author I happen to find very inspiring) suffers from Crohn's.  I posted a link to this blog post on his discussion forum. 

If they say the oysters are GMO, then they're GMO like soya and corn.  I'm not in a position to speak to the risks of eating them, but I personally wouldn't touch them.  Bon apetit!

Link doesn't work for me.

I think all of the science you found was legitimate.  Whether it's useful or not is a different story...

The maggot part I was worried about because I heard they're parasites and eating them they're still not digested and will burrow into your body after you eat them.

That's pretty silly.  Maggots are not parasites.  They're fly larvae.  They will digest just like any insect, and will not live long enough upon entering your stomach to be able to burrow into you.  They don't burrow anyway.  Their method of feeding is to spit their digestive juices on carrion, let the juices digest proteins and turn them into sugars, then lap up the sugars.

Maggots aren't worrysome.  Why would they be?  I've eaten maggots straight from deer carcasses.  They're fairly bland in taste, though not unpleasant.

Toxic forage might be a different issue.  If they live along a road where they spray the shoulders, or along railroad tracks where they spray, or among agricultural fields where they spray then the forage might be toxic and lead to bioaccumulation in the animal.  Otherwise I'm not sure what you're worrying about.

Thanks for the recommendations.  He's had several MRIs and CAT scans, so far to no avail.  I've never had one of these so I don't know how challenging they are to interpret, so maybe the interpreter missed something.  I'll email him a link to this thread so he can look through all of this.

The original article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science is open access, and can be seen here:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/03/07/1018116108.full.pdf+html?sid=7fac4f73-c9aa-4fee-bee7-30b65ebec195

This thread isn't to discuss my health problems as I'm in great shape.  My roommate's health, however, is a different story.  I'd like to tell about his problems and his diet, and perhaps get feedback from the group that I can pass on.  

His problems started a few years ago when he was training for a triathlon.  At first he experienced a subtle pain in the joint that connects his right leg to his pelvis.  Over time it got worse and worse, to the point that now the pain is so severe that he's rendered largely immobile.  He tells me the pain comes as shooting pains from his joint down his leg, and he also suffers from sudden and severe muscle spasms that grip his gluteus maximus/minimus and most muscles around his right hip and thigh and sometimes in his lower back.  He can't sit, stand or lay down without feeling pain, and the painkillers he gets by prescription from the (Western) doctor are barely able to moderate the pain.  I often wake late at night hearing him wailing in his room next to mine, but he insists there's nothing I can do and the doctors he's seen (several types) have no idea what's wrong.  All they do is keep giving him stronger medicine, including steroids, valium, and Percocet.  

Besides his joint problems, he also has a serious digestive disorder that causes him to have perpetually soft/loose stools.  When he needs to do #2 (solid waste) the need arises suddenly, and its quite, er...  loud.  You can hear him go from anywhere in the apartment.  It also sounds like it's quite painful, given the sounds he makes when he goes.  He's starting to realize, now that he lives with me (I guess he's mostly lived alone in the past), that going to the bathroom isn't supposed to be like that.

He eats mostly oatmeal (fantasizes about starting a business where he mixes up and sells 'gourmet' oatmeal recipes).  Aside from oatmeal he eats other grains, nuts (raw and roasted/toasted), some fruit (usually bananas), and usually one egg each day.  He occasionally eats meat, and he always fries eggs or meat in olive oil.  He probably gets 80-90% of his calories from carbs based on my observations, the rest from protein and fat.  He agreed to try to avoid gluten-containing grains for a while to see if that helps his digestive problem, but with his ongoing joint problem I don't know whether he's following through on this.  He spends a lot of time at the hospital and at another friend's house who lives closer to his doctor(s), so I haven't seen him eat much around the house lately and don't know what he gets when he eats at other places.

Ideas?

Same is true here in the US generally, but there are enough farmers and farmers waking up to the value of grass feeding that I have ready access to grass fed animal products.  Yeah, most farmers aren't too bright, particularly those who buy in to the industrial processes of raising plants & animals...

Lierre Keith, Derrick Jensen and a desire to de-civilize and un-domesticate myself.

I don't recommend believing anything from TD without extra proof.

I don't think anything is parasite-free.  The question is whether the parasites are of the sort that would become pathalogical, that is they would cause you some sort of problem.  Some parasites are better called symbionts, that is they live inside us and have no detrimental impacts and perhaps even some benefits.  It's only a few that can become problematic, and often these parasites are not intended to infect humans so when they get inside they don't know where to go and end up going to the wrong place.  

And, as GS mentioned, sometimes our bodies are malnourished and out of balance and normally neutral parasites can get out of hand, requiring us to use medicines to get them under control.

Overall I honestly don't worry about parasites too much.  That said, my diet is not as wide as others here.  For meat I eat primarily land mammals that are obligate herbivores, things like grazers and browsers.  I do not eat omnivorous animals (except occasionally chicken), and rarely eat fish whether from fresh or salt water.  I occasionally eat eggs when I can get them pasture raised (i.e. hens are not fed grain).  I have been a raw omnivore for over a year, and have not had any problem with parasites.