Glycaemic responses to foods reflect the balance between glucose loading into, and its clearance from, the blood. Currentin vitromethods for glycaemic analysis do not take into account the key role of glucose disposal. The present study aimed to develop a food intake-sensitive method for measuring the glycaemic impact of food quantities usually consumed, as the difference between release of glucose equivalents (GGE) from food duringin vitrodigestion and a corresponding estimate of clearance of them from the blood. Five foods – white bread, fruit bread, muesli bar, mashed potato and chickpeas – were consumed on three occasions by twenty volunteers to provide blood glucose response (BGR) curves. GGE release duringin vitrodigestion of the foods was also plotted. Glucose disposal rates estimated from downward slopes of the BGR curves allowed GGE dose-dependent cumulative glucose disposal to be calculated. By subtracting cumulative glucose disposal from cumulativein vitroGGE release, accuracy in predicting thein vivoglycaemic effect fromin vitroGGE values was greatly improved. GGE_in vivo = 0·99GGE_in vitro+0·75 (R²0·88). Furthermore, the difference between the curves of cumulative GGE release and disposal closely mimickedin vivoincremental BGR curves. We conclude that valid measurement of the glycaemic impact of foods may be obtainedin vitro, and expressed as grams of glucose equivalents per food quantity, by taking account not only of GGE release from food duringin vitrodigestion, but also of blood glucose clearance in response to the food quantity.