The metal chelating capacity, evaluated by the ferrous ion-chelating assay, of the coriander, celery and bush-basil EOs was presented in Fig. 2. It can be seen that the inhibition of the ferrozine–ferrous chloride complex increases in a concentration-dependent manner. At higher concentration (20 mg/mL), coriander EO showed the higher (p < 0.05) inhibition (94.2%). The inhibition of the complex by celery and bush-basil EO was very similar (83.0% and 83.2%, respectively) with no statistically significant differences (p > 0.05) between them. The values of IC50 were in the order coriander EO < celery EO < bush-basil EO with values of 2.36, 2.61 and 3.44 mg/mL respectively.