In my opinion it boils down to whether you believe in conspiracy theories; I do not. The CPI-U is the basis for inflation adjustments and it has been that for quite a while. Lot's of people copmplain about inflation indexes but the problem is that there is no single one that is perfect. The BLS does a good job with the CPU-I; anyone can disagree with it but in the real world of contemporary finance it is the only game in town.

A frequent misunderstanding is the people focus on price increases as they are obvious but they tend to pass over price decreases. Right now housing costs have declined but few point this out as a factor that acts to reduce the cost of living because gasoline, heating oil, many foods, etc. have increased. 

If you want inflation protection I can think of two alternatives, invest in TIPS or I-bonds - though you are severely limited in how much of the latter you can purchase - or hedge by buying into one of the financial instruments available for investing in commodities. For most people, the simplest and probably the safest are the inflation adjusted bonds, TIPS or I-bonds. In my case I hold TIPS, T-C's ILB, and two commodity investment instruments. 

Ray