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Probiotics and Prebiotics for Pets Explained

At Lucy Pet, like in human health, we believe that Prebiotics are an important contributing factor to the health of dogs and cats.

Gut Health is about achieving balance in the digestive system. Everything we eat or drink affects our gut bacteria diversity, and ultimately our overall health. Diets low in fiber may not create a thriving gut environment. Prebiotic fibers help to keep it flourishing, keeping the gut health on track. Consuming a wide variety of prebiotic fibers encourages gut bacteria diversity.

Lucy Pet P.B.F. Prebiotic Balanced Fiber™ uses advanced technology and goes far beyond other pet foods who may be using prebiotics today.

Prebiotics: A non-digestible food ingredient that supports a favorable environment for bacteria and cells in the gut wall of the digestive tract. Enables growth & activity of bacteria that populate the gastrointestinal tract.

Probiotics: A dietary supplement containing live bacteria that adds to the bacteria normally present in the gastrointestinal tract.

Prebiotics Probiotics
  • Food for the live organism
  • Not affected by temperature, acidity, time
  • Reaches the large intestine/hindgut.
  • Food like whole grains, seeds, and legumes such as beans, lentils, and peas 
  • A live organism
  • Die due to temperature, acidity, time
  • Used up in the stomach & small intestine
  • Few remain alive to be beneficial by the time the consumer uses the food.

Dogs and cats that eat food with prebiotics have higher levels of beneficial bacteria, particularly Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli. Fiber and prebiotics also improve regularity and stool quality. The most common examples of prebiotics in pet food are chicory root extract, inulin, oligofructose, and fructooligosaccharides (FOS), but Lucy Pet uses a variety of prebiotics in our trademark P.B.F. blend.

Probiotics and Prebiotics: A Visual Comparison

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Why don’t we use Probiotics?
Probiotics used in most pet foods will not survive time, & temperature exposure nor have concentrations high enough to survive acidity & digestion to provide any real benefit.

Don’t all pet foods already contain fiber?
Yes, all pet foods contain fiber because many natural ingredients contain some fiber. BUT not all fibers are created equally in terms of health benefits they provide to pets. Fibers can be either insoluble or soluble, viscous or non-viscous, fermentable or unfermentable.

Most prebiotics are fibers, but not all fibers are prebiotics.

Lucy Pet Foods fiber portfolio contains ingredients such as flaxseed, chickpeas, chicory root, pumpkin, miscanthus grass fiber, etc. These provide a very rich fiber profile that the microbiota in the gut can metabolize.

We know that the gut microbiota is key to the health of the animal, and the more diverse the fiber system used, the more diverse the gut microbiota. Microbial diversity is one very important feature of a healthy gut.