Recent food safety scandals in Taiwan have caused panic among the Taiwanese public and have become a primary concern because foods were discovered containing a dangerous amount of illegal additives. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) model is extremely useful for predicting people's food choices and consumption habits. This study included an examination of the public attention to and perceived credibility of mass media food safety information and the perceived risk as background factors in the extended TPB model to predict public intention to take precautions to avoid consuming foods with additives. The empirical results of structural equation modeling analysis with 487 useful samples revealed that the extended TPB model has an increased explanatory power relative to the original model regarding the intention of the public in Taiwan to take precautions to avoid consuming foods that contain additives. In addition to attitudes toward and perceived behavioral control of the consumption of food with additives, the impact of risk perceptions plays an important role in determining an individual's intention to take precautions to avoid consuming foods that contain additives. The attention of an individual to food additive scandal news and their perceived risk determine their attitude toward consuming food with additives. An individual's perceived risk of consuming food with additives was determined through the attention paid to food additive scandal news and the perceived credibility of such news. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.