Hi Jerry,
Shape of the bowl, depth of cut, and speed of cut all contribute making cut from rim to bottom center.
a hemisphere shaped bowl is probably the easiest to cut through the transition sincethe cut is always across the fibers until dead bottom center.
Even with these bowls there is more resistance as the angle across thhengrain becomes more acute
With wider bowls there is more cutting into the end grain.
There are lots of ways to cope with thus issue. I find it more problematic when roughing.
Here is what I'd do.
The speed of the wood coming past the tool is much slower a 1/3 from the bottom than it is at the rim
If you are doing step cutting you can speed up the lathe a bit as you work on the Bottom 1/3.
You can see this in a a video of a roughing demo. Fast forward to 22:50 to get in the neighbohood.
Roughing green bowl -
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0bGSafZq4
What I do when roughing is to start my cut removing 1/2" to 3/4" of wood.
Then mostly by feel when the cut meets more resistance just pull the tool back a bit an cut half the thickness to bottom center then cut the part I left.
Usually this is 2/3 of the wall at full cut and the last 1/3 repeated twice with a 1/2 cut.
When I'm doing the finish cuts they are to light to halve so I just slow down as I get closer cutting into the end grain.
In the same demo I return a dried bowl.
Fast forward to 26:26 to see the finish cuts.
Mounting and turning a dried bowl -
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCZWsHB4vlM