Right, let me clairfy...

Algin is so absorbant that if you take it with food or other supplements, it will interfere to some degree with the absorption of that food or those supplements.

Well, if you're eating food that contains mercury, like fish, then you certainly want to absorb the mercury from the fish before it enters the digestive system so in this case, you want to take the align "with" the meal (see #3 below).

Also, like Laura said, if you're eating food that contains substances that chelate mercury, like cilantro, then different rules apply. See the explaination below.

(1) If you want to chelate mercury and there is cilantro in your meal, then you want some of the cilantro to get absorbed into the body. So, in this case, you want to take algin perhaps an hour before the meal and an hour after so algin is present when the liver starts dumping mercury but not to interfere with the body's absorption of the cilantro.

(2) If you don't want to chelate mercury but there just happens to be cilantro (or some other mercury chelator like coriander) in the food, then take the algin 15 minutes before the meal and then 15 minutes after and then again in an hour. This will help prevent both the chelator from getting into the blood (although not completely) and it will absorb the small amout of mercury that is liver-dumped from the small amount of chelator that does make it into the body.

(3) If you're eating food that contains mercury, then you want to prevent the absorption of that mercury by the body. You'd rather have the algin absorb the mercury and carry it out of the digestive system, so follow rule #2 (above).

I hope this makes sense.