If a meal contains 12 g of inulin and 8 g of resistant starch, which physiological property explains why these compounds reach the colon intact to serve as prebiotics?

They bind to bile salts in the small intestine which transports them directly into the hepatic portal vein and then retro-transport to the colon.

They are nondigestible or resistant to human digestive enzymes in the small intestine, so they transit to the colon where microbes ferment them.

They are absorbed through the small intestinal epithelium and then actively secreted back into the colon by colonic epithelial transporters specifically for microbial feeding.

They are rapidly hydrolyzed into simple sugars in the stomach but then re-polymerize in the colon where microbial enzymes reverse the process.