Eating the week before Thanksgiving on a food stamp budget is an effort “to deepen our understanding about America,” says Rabbi Lenny Gordon.

"The tradition of the prophets said whatever you are doing is not really working as long as there are people who are hungry, who are without clothing, who are without shelter. That's how you judge a society."

More and more churches and faith-based groups are creating small farms to feed the urban poor, especially children, in places like the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

"Drought does not need to mean famine," according to Niger's president, who adds that the country is tired of needing help and not being able to feed its own people. "We need to escape from emergency aid. We need to help our population produce and provide for itself."

"How they relate to God and their fellow man, their diet, their exercise, their avoidance of tobacco and alcohol—all of that collectively contributes to longevity," says Loma Linda University public health professor Larry Beeson.

In the Orthodox Christian tradition fasting is not about deprivation, says Catherine Mandell, author of "When You Fast: Recipes for Lenten Seasons."

“When we say grace we are grateful for the food on our plates. But where did that food travel? Who picked it? How did it get to us? As people of faith we are called to think about that.”

"When we’ve had that political will to reduce poverty, we’ve been able to do it in our country, and that’s what we need to mobilize now," says Reverend David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World.

"They don’t believe that either change is possible there or that their money, or their resources, what they give, will actually translate into something different on the ground. That’s the crisis that we’re seeing," says American Refugee Committee president Daniel Wordsworth.

"This is a new wave of activism through what one eats, that what we eat and what we buy is a vote of confidence in our highest values," says Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz.