Probiotics? Prebiotics? What is the difference and how do they help maintain a healthy gastrointestinal tract?

As a quick refresher, let us start with how probiotics and prebiotics help your dog’s and or cat’s gastrointestinal tract as well as their overall health. Probiotics as many of you know, are quite simply good bacteria which help maintain a healthy gut as well as your pet’s overall health by helping reduce the number of pathogenic bacteria. These are bacteria like Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lactobacillus casei which produce lactic acid which can help reduce the number of bad bacteria. Unfortunately, these good bacteria do not fair well against the elements even if they are sprayed on your pet’s food after cooking. With most or all of the good bacteria dying out before your dog or cat can eat their food definitely presents a challenge to to be addressed. Before we address this let us talk quickly about prebiotics. Prebiotics are quite simply food for good bacteria or probiotics. They are typically non-digestible fiber compounds which become growth material for the good bacteria.

Now to solve to the issue with probiotics dying before your dog or cat can get their health benefits. What Lotus has done differently is we add a fermentation product of good bacteria not live probiotics. So there are no live bacteria that will die. This means your dog or cat gets the benefits of good bacteria (lactic acid and less bad bacteria). This means your dog or cat is protected against harmful bacteria and the potential disease and or illness which are associated with these pathogens.

These fermentation products of L acidophilus, L casei and L lactis can found found in all of Lotus’ Oven-Baked recipes for both dogs and cats. You will also find Inulin which is a prebiotic from chicory root.