I’m the father of two darn good eaters.

My son can rip through a plate of rice and black beans like a lawn mower and my daughter actually packs cucumbers in her lunch. They aren’t the best eaters (Skittles and Nerds are the bane of my existence), and I always wish they’d eat more at any given sitting. But looking at my 8- and 11-year-old, I can say they do choose healthful foods, and I’m very proud of that.

How did they become such good eaters?

Step one is…

1. Start Early. Recent research shows that a kid’s palate for fruits and veggies actually begins to establish itself before he or she is even born.

You know what that means, partner of Mom-to-be? Making sure Mom is eating healthfully and getting through morning sickness is important, but actually making the trip for an organic yellow watermelon 30 minutes before the co-op closes because that’s what she’s craving is striking a blow for good eating in your kid’s future.

Later, first foods can be fruits and veggies. Avocado mashed up is a perfectly decent first food, and so are bananas, sweet potatoes, applesauce, and mashed potatoes.

As your kid gets a little older, making mealtime fun is key. If all he or she hears is “Don’t eat that,” and “Clean your plate,” you’ll raise a picky non-eater who hates food, guaranteed.

Ask yourself this: Am I having at fun at dinner? If so, your kid probably is, too.

My strategy was always to make up games for my two kids. Here are a couple games that can make dinner time a hoot.

2. The Don’t-Eat Game. This game teaches important lessons like eating well, reverse psychology, and comedic shtick.

Saying to your 3-year-old, “Whatever you do…DON’T…EAT…the BROCOLLI,” is the surest way to create a rabid little broccoli-lover. When they take a bite, be outraged. “You ATE the BROCOLLI?” When they reach for another floret, say, “Hey-hey-hey, I WARNED you!” If they ask for seconds and thirds, then you’re doing it right.

My 8-year-old still asks to play The Don’t-Eat Game, and both my kids still eat the broccoli first in my stir-fries.

3. The Giant. A variation on The Don’t-Eat Game, this one works wonders, too. The broccoli florets are trees, the round carrots slices are car wheels, the apple slices are canoes, and your toddler is The Dreaded Giant.

“No, Giant, no! Don’t pull up that oak tree and EAT it!!”

You get the idea.

Till she was 7 or 8, my niece Andrea would say, “Pass the trees, please.”

4. Salad People. Mollie Katz is not just a cookbook author, she is also a brilliant strategist for good eating. The author of “The Enchanted Broccoli Forest Cookbook” also wrote a book called “Salad People,” and Katz’s approach to getting kids to eat should be adopted by parents and daycares everywhere.

At lunch or dinner, lay out a wide array of foods, fruits, and veggies to use as art material (even if it’s food they say they don’t like) and let your kids make faces, people, houses, cats, whatever they want to make. I used to keep a couple Tupperware containers of “food-art material” ready at all times for Salad People. Cooked spaghetti noodles can be hair and pickled beets from Angelica’s Gardens can be eyes. They both store well.

When finished, eat the eyes! Eat the hair! Eat the nose! Oh, no, DON’T EAT the nose!

I’m almost positive my son’s lifelong love of kalamata olives is traceable to making Salad People. He wasn’t born craving them.

The lesson of Salad People is to present your kids with lots of food options at dinner and to keep offering them. If they say they don’t like a certain food, make sure they have other options that they do like. Then, the next time you play Salad People, ask them to try it again. Then try cooking it. Try steaming it. Then offer it raw again. Your kid’s palate will change and they’ll go through different phases, so just because she hurled that cucumber across the room when she was 3 doesn’t mean she won’t pack it in her lunch box herself at 8.

5. Give Teens POWER. The same strategy of of letting the eight-year-old pack her own lunch can work with teens. Just remember: Don’t get into power struggles over food.

Find out what fruits or veggies that they will eat and keep those in stock. Fresh fruit? Organic rainier cherries? Hey, it’s better than Skittles and Nerds.

Then just do your best to keep your teen engaged with what you find fun about eating together. Ask her to make dinner with a new recipe one night a week or to join you cutting and chopping. Ask him to help you plant a garden next year, growing “ingredients” for Thanksgiving dinner; that’s a fun project for younger kids, too. Let her choose the dinner music or a movie during dinner. It’s absolutely amazing how much good food a kid will eat when distracted with “The Avengers.”

Always keep in mind what you love about food, and just do your best to keep your kids engaged with what they love, too. They’ll do the rest. Trust them.