>From what I understand, I *think* when potassium reserves have been really depleted, sodium and calcium are drawn/pushed into the cell to buffer the excess acidity. I think thats when the imbalance occurs as sod and cal should mostly lie outside the cells.
While that makes more sense, then the issue is a lack of potassium, not a lack of alkaline reserves. You would then eat for potassium, not for alkaline.
As for the mercury being alkaline, I threw that out there for fun. The truth is that even in very mercury-toxic people, we are talking about minute amounts of mercury, something that would be insignificant to a given cell's acid-alkaline balance.